Forever
by LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: Despite herself, Addison was incredibly curious as to what made her normally cocky intern bumble around and babble like an idiot.  "I need you to be my fiancée," Alex blurted. Addison's big, pale blue eyes widened, and her jaw went slack. Oh.
1. Chapter 1

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 1: A Surprising Proposal

**A/N: So I'm watching the Wedding Planner, and I'm falling in love with Justin Chambers all over again. I had to write. I **_**had**_** to! Enjoy!**

**A/N2: The fic is named after Idina Menzel's song, Forever, but really, it has nothing to do with the lyrics. It's more what I have in mind for the story, so the title is actually kind of ironic. Don't worry. This isn't a tragedy. I'm going to stop babbling now. Okay, enjoy! **

Addison was uncomfortable, to say the least. Alex Karev, her insolent but admittedly hot intern, had been staring intently at her all morning. At first, she surreptitiously checked her teeth and her skin for any blemishes or stuck food that might attract this kind of interest. Next came her hair, until she realized she was checking how she looked to _Karev_, her _intern_.

With that thought, Addison promptly dropped her hand to her side and locked it in place.

Sighing, she handed the chart she'd just finished updating to the nurse on call and walked away from the nurses' station. She was halfway down the hall when she barely had enough time to register Karev catching up to her before feeling his hand tugging her by the elbow into a nearby on-call room.

"Karev!" she exclaimed in a mixture of surprise and annoyance. She was talking to his back as he locked the door behind himself. "What are you doing? We have a patient to get to."

Karev finally turned around, and for the first time, Addison saw his state of unease. His dark brown eyes carried a hint of distress, and his right hand was in his white coat's pocket and, judging by the bulge it made, was holding onto something for dear life. "Karev?" she asked gently, cocking her head to one side and trying to discern what on earth was bothering him by peering farther into the chocolate depths of his eyes.

"This is going to sound really weird," he prefaced. A faint flush flooded his cheeks, but whether it was from embarrassment or anger, Addison couldn't tell. His voice was strained, which could also be due to a variety of emotions. "And I know it's random and out of the blue and totally unprofessional—"

"Spit it out, Karev," Addison urged. Despite herself, she was incredibly curious as to what made her normally cocky intern bumble around and babble like an idiot. What was he going to ask her that was so unprofessional?

Karev complied. "I need you to be my fiancée," he blurted. Addison's big, pale blue eyes widened, and her jaw went slack.

Oh.

_What?_

"Excuse me?" the redhead sputtered. Did he seriously just propose to her? No, he sounded panicked when he did. What the hell did he do this time?

"My ex-girlfriend is coming to Seattle," he began desperately. "We were together for two years—she was the longest relationship I've ever had—before I came here. When I got this residency, I was going to propose to her so that she could come up with me, but when I went home to get ready for our date the night I had planned to propose, I got a message on my machine." He paused for air.

Strangely riveted, Addison queried softly, "What did it say?"

"My sister Amber had tipped her off about my plans for that night because she was so excited to be getting a sister. Anyway, Vanessa—that's her name, Vanessa—she called and said she had no idea we were so serious," Alex bit out. He had to take a deep breath to continue. "She'd only wanted me for the sex, and she'd been going on dates with other guys almost from the beginning. There was some guy, Ben, who wanted to be more exclusive, and she said yes to him and didn't even give me the chance to ask her to marry me."

Once he'd quieted, Addison couldn't help but see her intern in a new light. His reputation as a mini-Mark Sloan was pretty widespread through the hospital, but she doubted the why was as well known. In fact, she had a feeling she was the only one in Seattle he told. "She dumped you with a message on a machine?" she clarified, horrified. He only nodded. "That makes me sick," she declared disgustedly.

"Yeah, I went right to the bathroom and threw up my lunch after I heard it," Alex admitted. "Anyway, she called last night, and she told me she was coming up to Seattle to visit some family. She's getting married to Ben in six months, and she wants to see me."

Addison's eyebrows climbed up her forehead until confusion made her furrow them instead. "So where do I factor into all this?"

Scratching the back of his head, Alex looked downward—anywhere but in her eyes, but he seemed to be staring at her chest without even realizing it. Addison fought the urge to close her white coat. "She wouldn't stop gushing about Ben, and she wanted to know if I was involved with anyone. There was just something in her voice that would make me feel pathetic if I told her I was single, so I said I was engaged."

"And you just decided I was the lucky woman who was desperate enough to accept a fake marriage proposal?" Addison commented dryly, crossing her arms and leaning all her weight on one stilettoed foot. "I'm flattered."

"No, it isn't like that, I promise!" Alex insisted, bringing his eyes back up to meet hers in urgency. "She wanted to know my fiancée's name, and your name just came out." The flush on his face became deeper. "I guess you were on my mind when she called, and I know we just got back to normal after the whole kiss thing—" Addison shifted on her feet uncomfortably at the still-fresh memory of his reprimanding her for avoiding him—"but I really need your help here. Please?"

There was a part of her that wanted to scream a rejection at him as loudly as she could, so that he could feel just an ounce of the humiliation he'd so thoughtfully served her after their kiss in the bar. That part of her still stung from that conversation in the linen closet. But there was another part of her that _really_ wanted to kiss him again, and if she had to parade around as his fiancée, there was a good chance she'd get to.

Addison cocked her head to the side once again and stared into his pleading eyes, and sighed in defeat. "I don't know why I'm doing this, but okay," she agreed, trying to tell herself she was doing this out of pure pity and not the urge to jump him.

"Really?" Alex asked hopefully. Dejected, Addison nodded, completely unprepared for the unexpected hug her nod elicited. Pulling back, he revealed a small velvet box sitting in his right palm. "I got you a ring to wear. I'd start wearing it now, because she said she'd be here tomorrow, and it would probably be best if you didn't have everyone looking at you really confused tomorrow."

Still in shock from the hug, Addison took the box from his hand and opened it. A gasp left her lips when she saw the small white-gold band with a beautifully white princess cut diamond sitting nestled between two smaller diamonds. "Okay," she whispered, still staring at the ring. It was gorgeous, but at the same time it was a painful reminder of the one she used to wear, alongside a wedding band. A needle-like pressure formed in her chest as she realized just what she'd agreed to, and that a certain ex-husband of hers was going to see this on her finger, replacing the platinum solitaire he'd given her twelve and a half years ago.

"Here," Alex offered, taking the ring out of the box and gently slipping it onto the fourth finger of her left hand. "It looks good on your hand," he mused after a few moments spent staring at it.

"Thanks," Addison said numbly, also staring at her hand.

Two beepers going off broke them out of their reverie. They were needed in the pit.

"So I guess we have to go," Alex declared. He heard a murmured agreement from his now-pretend-fiancée. He looked up and could see her distress at going outside with a ring on her finger. On impulse, he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you," he whispered, and with that, he opened the door and started out for the pit, leaving an even more startled Addison to follow in his wake, her right hand touching her face where his lips had brushed it and her left hand safely in her coat pocket.

**A/N: So what do you think? I know it's a shortie of a chapter, but I just wanted to get something out. I've been shamelessly reading fics all this week, and so I felt really guilty for not having updated anything in like two weeks. How is the result of my guilt and my infatuation with Justin Chambers? REVIEW!**


	2. Scrubs

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 2: Scrubs

**A/N: So I really didn't expect this to get such a big response, but I am **_**ecstatic**_** that you all liked it so much! I normally wouldn't be updating this soon, but Juli decided to take it upon herself to nag me every single time she talked to me to update. I have a feeling if I update another story before I update with this one, she would hate me just a little bit. And I don't want that. So here's Chapter 2!**

The pit was chaos when Addison reached. Alex was already helping wheel in a car crash victim who, just by looking at the poor woman, would definitely need more than one surgery before the day was over. To her left, Mark was working on stitching up some surface wounds on an old man, while Callie took a look at a rather nasty femoral fracture. Right next to them was Derek, who was checking the pupils' responses to light of a woman who looked to be seven months pregnant. Without hesitation, Addison headed to Derek's patient.

"Hey," she said in a short greeting before paying attention to the woman. With Derek holding her eyes open, she couldn't tell what state the woman was in. "Is she conscious?"

"Hey, and no," the wavy-haired neurosurgeon answered. "She blew a pupil, and she has a skull fracture and very likely hemorrhaging."

Addison called for an ultrasound machine over her shoulder as she helped Derek push the gurney into Trauma Room 1. "Meaning it'll be a miracle if her baby survives without any damage," she muttered under her breath.

Not quietly enough, for Derek shot her a confident grin. "A miracle or Addison Forbes Montgomery," he boosted, earning himself a half-smile, half-eye-roll. "The good thing is that her breathing is stable, her heartbeat is steady and her airway is clear."

"How the hell can someone take such a beating as that and not jeopardize the baby's air supply?" Addison asked herself, shaking her head in wonder. "Maybe this kid is luckier than I thought possible."

When the ultrasound machine got wheeled into the trauma room, Addison lifted the woman's shirt to expose her pregnant belly. Using her left hand to squirt the ultrasound jelly on her stomach and then place the wand on the part of the belly where the baby's heart was, she used her right to click some buttons on the machine so she could get a picture of the uterus, noting absently that it was a girl.

Derek's part of the exam was done, now that he had sent off an intern to clear an OR for him, and so he just stood there watching his ex-wife work. Her focus was always something to watch. The light glinted off of something near the unconscious woman's belly, attracting his attention. His piercing blue eyes widened at the sight of a diamond ring resting on Addison's fourth finger.

"You're engaged?" he demanded, sounding both incredibly stunned and incredibly shaken.

Addison's head whipped around from the machine to look at him in panic before following his line of sight to her hand handling the wand. Biting back an expletive at her carelessness, she just nodded, "Yeah, I am," before turning her attention back to the monitor.

Shell-shocked, Derek sputtered, "To who?"

This time, Addison expected the question. She slowly turned back to look at him over her shoulder and smirked, "Wouldn't you like to know?" Once again, she went back to the monitor. She zoomed in on something. The heartbeat wasn't exactly what it should be.

"I would, actually," he insisted heatedly.

"Later," she dismissed, removing the wand from the patient's body and all focus again. "The baby's heart wall collapsed. She's not getting enough blood. If we don't get an OR soon, we'll lose the baby much faster than we'll lose her."

**8D**

Alex looked up when he heard the urgent clicking of Addison's heels go past him, wheeling a pregnant woman towards the OR. "Karev, once your patient is stable, I need you to scrub in," she told him when she passed. At that moment, her hair fell in front of her face, and she tucked it back behind her ear with her left hand. The subtle message: I'm doing this for you, so you better get your ass in that OR as quickly as humanly possible.

**8D**

A few hours into the surgery, Derek looked up from the brain of the pregnant woman to take in his ex-wife, who was currently laporoscopically trying to repair the hole in the baby's left atrium.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, trying to keep out the hurt from his voice. After all, _he_ left _her_. Twice.

Never taking her eyes from the monitor, Addison admitted, "You're actually the first to know."

"What?" Derek's eyes were back to being trained on the woman's brain.

"It just happened today," she clarified truthfully. "Nobody else knows." She silently thanked her ex-husband for not letting the nosy scrub nurses hear exactly what they were talking about. She didn't need that gasp of surprise when she was trying to save this baby in utero. "I am glad you were the first to find out, though."

Derek couldn't suppress the snort that came out in response to her statement. "Yeah, the look of sheer panic on your face when you realized I knew was really you being happy," he commented dryly.

"Well, I did actually want to tell you instead of you just figuring it out," Addison argued calmly. "It seemed only fair, given…everything."

"I guess so," he admitted. "Just…why so soon?"

Addison paused for a second or two before asking in a small voice, "Was it too soon for you?"

Derek winced inwardly, knowing she was referring to the prom incident. She was right. He had no legitimacy in talking about her moving on so soon after the divorce when he moved on _during_ the marriage. He didn't answer, and kept on operating.

**8D**

Alex came rushing into the scrub room just as Addison and Derek were coming in from the other end, getting ready to scrub out.

"Oh, nice of you to join us, Karev," Addison greeted wryly, bending over the scrub sink and cleaning her arms.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Montgomery," he apologized in a strained voice. "As soon as you left, my patient coded, and we had to get her into surgery before she lost anymore blood. I couldn't leave." His eyes begged for her to forgive him, not wanting to get yelled at by his pretend-fiancée in front of her ex-husband and his boss.

Sighing, Addison nodded in understanding. "It's fine. I did say to wait until your patient was stable." Straightening, she grabbed some towels and dried her hands. She leaned back against the sink and reached up to her breast pocket of her scrub top. Alex and Derek both look on in fascination—although Derek was much less happy about it—as she removed a small safety pin and slid her engagement ring off the prong and onto her left hand, returning the pin to her pocket and fastening to the inside of it. Looking up, Addison cursed inwardly again. It was like this ring was making her increasingly careless.

"So I guess I wasn't the _first_ to know," Derek grumbled, his face impassive.

Rolling her eyes, Addison put her fists on her hips in the don't-mess-with-me pose that women seemed to have perfected from birth and said, "No, you _were_ the first to know. Karev's not surprised because _he_ gave me the ring."

Inside, both Addison and Alex were screaming. What the hell had possessed her to say that? Alex knew it would have come out eventually, but he had always hoped he'd be out of punching range of the neurosurgeon.

Derek's eyes grew as wide as saucers. "You're engaged to _Karev_?" he choked out. "You do realize that you've lost any right to call Meredith a twelve-year-old."

As much as she hated to admit it, those words hurt. Not by the fact that he brought up her hypocrisy, but by the fact that he found out his ex-wife was engaged not six months since the divorce, and he chose to stand up for the woman he left her for. "I can't believe _that's_ what you're deciding to focus on," she spat, fighting back the tears that suddenly clouded her vision.

"Meredith? Seriously?" Alex asked in disgust. He didn't even realize he'd pulled Addison by the arm into him until he was hugging her protectively while she buried her face in his coat to hide her watery eyes from Derek. "Do you really want to hurt Addie back that much? Because if I remember correctly, _you_ were the one who cheated this time." Alex had no idea where these words were coming from, nor did he fully understand why he was glaring daggers at his boss. He didn't register that he'd also used Addison's nickname.

Derek got no chance to respond, for at that moment, his pager beeped urgently. With one last conflicting look—swimming with confusion, hurt, indignation and loss—he turned on his heel and left the scrub room.

Once he'd left, Addison sniffed and pulled back from the embrace, wiping at her eyes. "Sorry about that," she murmured.

Alex refused to let go of her, keeping a firm, but gentle grip on both of her arms. "Don't worry about it. Are you okay? Shepherd shouldn't have said that. He's an ass."

A dry laugh left her lips as she shook her head. "No, he's not. He was just being one," she corrected. "Thanks, though, for what you said." She looked up into his eyes when she said that. Since she was in surgery, she was wearing tennis shoes instead of her stilettos, making her a good two inches shorter than him. Her left hand rested on his chest, and she'd brought her right down from her face. Alex fought the incredible urge to kiss her right then, reminding himself this was all for pretend.

"You don't have to thank me," he whispered huskily, leaning his head down despite himself. Addison felt her eyes sliding closed as she waited for his lips to fall on hers, anticipation making her skin tingle. Almost outside of her body, Addison wanted to gag at how eager she felt to kiss him again.

Unfortunately, when there was less than a centimeter between the two faces, an angry Mark burst into the scrub room. Ripping Alex off of Addison, he didn't hesitate to throw all his weight into a right hook to Alex's jaw.

**A/N: Muahahha! I'm evil, I know. But did you still like it? REVIEW!**


	3. Fix Your Face

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 3: Fix Your Face

**A/N: Once again, my speedy update is thanks to the nagging talents of Juli. But I actually like this chapter, or the second half of it at least. I know it's been really dramatic, but I'm getting on my way to the light, fluffy, funny ride I promised!**

**A/N2: Btdubs, in case it wasn't clear earlier, this takes place like a week after Great Expectations and the very cruel scene in the linen closet, but before Wishin' and Hopin'. But George hasn't proposed to Callie yet, and neither has Burke to Christina. Even though Burke and Christina aren't in this yet, so far as I can tell. Whatever, anyway, enjoy!**

"What's up?" Derek growled, finding Mark Sloan was the one who paged him on the old man he'd been tending to in the pit.

Mark looked up from the patient. He had the man turned on his side while he carefully removed more glass shards from his back. "CT's backed up, but I can tell from the amount of glass in his back and how deep some of these lacerations are that he's got some glass in his spinal cord," he stated, going back to his ministrations.

"Fine." Derek walked around to check the old man's eyes.

Mark's eyebrows rose. "What's with you?"

"It's nothing," the neurosurgeon denied impassively, but his heated glare belied his anger as he moved his finger from one side of the man's face to the other.

"You've always been a terrible liar," Mark commented. "Look, I know you hate me, but that doesn't mean I don't know you anymore. If you don't talk now, I'm not going to shut up until you do."

"Addison's engaged," Derek snapped, venom dripping in his voice. "Okay? My ex-wife got engaged to her _intern_. That's what's up, now shut up and let me get back to my job."

Mark sat there and stared at his former best friend for a second before leaning back in laughter. "I can't believe you, of all people, are upset that she's with an inter—" Mark cut off in realization, eyes as wide as they could go. Biting back his own growl, Mark pushed away from his patient and barked at his intern for the day to finish removing the glass from his back, disappearing out the door.

**8D**

Alex lay sprawled on the ground, his ears ringing, gums bleeding and jaw in a great deal of pain. Slowly working his jaw—wincing in agony, but relieved it wasn't dislocated—he pushed himself up from the sterile scrub floor and got to his feet, faintly registering Addison's enraged voice yelling at Mark.

"…What the hell was that?" she demanded. She stepped between Mark and Alex to keep him from attacking again; Mark would punch the wall before he ever hurt a hair on her head.

"You're engaged to _Karev_?" Mark barked, enraged.

"_Yes_," Addison answered cuttingly. She might have added a little extra bite in that word than necessary, but she and Alex was so _damn_ close that the fact that they didn't get the chance to actually kiss made her want to spit nails. Once again, she tried to remind herself that she was the kickass surgeon, not the intern. She shouldn't feel like a high school girl again, drooling over the hot jock. "There's no reason you and Derek need to behave like the world is ending that I'm finally moving on."

"You _just_ got divorced!" he insisted. "You don't need to be engaged to the rebound guy, Addison."

"I didn't," she corrected sharply. "If I remember correctly, _you_ were my rebound guy. Both times. And you're right, I don't need to be engaged to that guy. Don't forget, _you_ wanted me to move on."

"With _me_," Mark clarified, obviously too late. He didn't care if he sounded insolent and possessive. He was seeing red, and he wanted to _kill_ Karev.

Alex, who up until then had been content to nurse his extremely sore jaw, decided to come to Addison's defense at the plastic surgeon's statements. "Well that's not up to you," he snapped.

Mark just looked at him, still too angry to do anything but sneer. "And what the hell does Karev offer you that I can't ten times as much?"

Rolling her eyes, Addison hated doing this to Mark. When he wasn't homicidal over her—and only her—he was one of the sweetest people she knew, once you got past the superficial ass part of his personality. "Well, for one, he doesn't let his ego rule him all the time, and he doesn't think my specialty is any less valid than yours," she started. "Two, he doesn't seem to have any difficulty keeping it in his pants around other women." Mark winced at that, thinking back to when he screwed up with Addison the first time. "Do I really need to go on?" _Please say no. _Please_ say no._

He said nothing, just stood there and fumed. He couldn't really say anything to that. He was all too aware of the truth behind her words as it pertained to him. Karev, he didn't really know about, except that the kid used to idolize him and follow him around like a servant on the off chance he'd get to scrub in.

"Mark, I really want you to be happy for me," Addison pleaded, all heat gone from her voice. Mark looked up and saw water in her perfect blue eyes. "You're one of my best friends. Don't throw that away because we aren't together."

"I…I can't right now, Addie," he confessed. His shoulders dropped, as if all the fight had left his body. "Maybe later, but it's too new, for now." With that, he turned around and left the scrub room before she could say anything.

Sniffing, Addison kept staring at the place where Mark was just standing. "You owe me," she whispered.

"I know," Alex replied just as softly. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her again, but she didn't look like she wanted to be touched right now, especially by him.

Turning to face him, she reached up and slowly removed Alex's hand from where Mark's hand had fallen on his face. "How's your jaw?" she asked remarkably tenderly given what had just happened.

Grimacing, Alex tried not to show how much pain he was really in. "It's fine," he said. "I've gotten worse before."

Addison fixed him with a stare. "I don't care if you have gotten worse before. You're bleeding, and you're getting a nasty bruise. You are going to stop being such a damn _guy_ and let me fix your face."

There was such determination and concern in her voice that Alex had to suppress a smile for two reasons: one, because he didn't want to piss her off by laughing at her and two, because excessive lower face use hurt far too much.

**8D**

Mark sat sullenly on an exam table while Callie Torres, the resident orthopedic surgeon, wrapped his right hand and put it in a splint. Next to his hand sat a very large pack of ice, which would be going right back on his hand once she was done.

"Seriously, Mark," Callie pushed, "who the hell did you punch?" Mark grumbled something incoherent under his breath. "What?" He still didn't answer. Taking a deep, calming breath, Callie lowered her voice menacingly, all patience gone. "Mark, I'm currently the one wrapping your hand, and I could very easily do something else to this two-million-dollar hand that would end your career as a surgeon. Who. Did. You. Punch?"

"Karev," he grunted promptly, eyeing Callie with a mingled expression of respect and the belief that she would deliver on her threat without hesitation if he didn't do as she said.

"Why did you punch Karev?" she asked, puzzled.

"Because he freaking proposed to Addie," he answered heatedly, getting riled up at the notion again.

Callie almost dropped the hand in shock. "Karev proposed to Addison?" Mark nodded grudgingly. "You go, girl," she whispered to herself, carefully keeping her face neutral when he whipped his head up in indignation.

**8D**

Alex sat in silence while Addison swabbed iodine on the cut along his jawbone. He couldn't help but savor their closeness. He sat on an exam table, and she stood up against the table, still in her scrubs, her hip brushing his leg, and her face less than a foot away from his. He could see the small, otherwise invisible freckles on her nose and the faint flush that colored her cheeks. He could smell her rosy perfume and an intoxicating scent that was unmistakably her own.

As she administered the local anesthetic so she could give him a few stitches, Addison smirked to herself. "You don't have to worry about scarring," she reassured him softly. "Mark hates that I'm just as skilled at suturing as he is."

Alex snorted softly. "I'm not a girl, Addison," he replied gently, feeling the beginnings of the numbness creeping into his jaw. "I don't care about a little bit of scarring."

Sparing him an amused, knowing glance, she returned to her work. "Oh, yeah, you guys always think it's sexy to have scars, right? Battle wounds or some crap like that."

"Well, a lot of women do like them," he admitted sheepishly.

She shook her head. "Not me," she confided. "I'd rather not be constantly reminded that guys think little beyond their fists and their sex drives." That earned her another snort, but Addison caught the amusement in his eyes. "Besides," she continued, cocking her head to the side to examine the cut on his jawbone, "this particular scar would just make you look like a pirate, and not pretty, pretty Jack Sparrow."

Alex wrinkled his nose. "You thought Jack Sparrow looked good in those movies?"

Nodding to herself, she smiled. "I'm a sucker for Johnny Depp."

"The dude wears _eyeliner_."

"Shut up so I can sew you back together," Addison ordered, flashing him a good-natured smile as she picked up the suture kit.

Five minutes later, she cut the last thread and reached for the bandages. Taking a piece of gauze, she held his face gently with one hand and dabbed at the stitches with the other to soak up any blood that escaped.

"Thanks for standing up for me," Alex expressed, once again admiring the tender concern on his "fiancée's" face.

She just shrugged and balled up the piece of gauze, chucking it into the biohazard bin. As she turned back around to face him with the bandage in her hand, she said, "Well, you did the same for me with Derek, and you _did_ get sucker-punched because of me. It was the least I could do."

Smoothing the bandage lightly over his jawbone, she let her hands fall to remove her gloves and deposit them on the tray next to her, but made no move to step away from him. As they locked eyes, a tentative smile came to her face, and she looked like she was going to say—or confess—something, but then a very loud squeal from the door made her jump away from Alex out of sheer reflex.

Standing in the doorway was Callie Torres, whose face couldn't have been more delighted. Without hesitation, she crossed the space between her and Addison and uncharacteristically gathered her into a big bear hug. "Congratulations," she squealed. "I can't believe you're engaged."

Alex saw Addison's face go slack over her friend's shoulder. Suddenly Alex felt extremely selfish for having put her in this situation, where she constantly had to lie to her friends. Alex didn't really have that many friends, so it hadn't occurred to him that there would be a difficulty in that respect.

"Thanks, Callie," Addison responded, masking her inner turmoil with confusion as she pulled away from the hug. "H-How'd you find out?"

"Mark nearly broke his hand punching out your fiancé," Callie answered matter-of-factly. Looking over her shoulder at Alex, who was still sitting on the exam table, she commented, "He doesn't look any worse for the wear, though."

_Well, it's not like I can spoil the illusion by not acting like I'm with him_, the redhead thought to herself. Forcing a smile, she walked over to Alex and said, "Yeah, and he's pissed off I'm not leaving him a sexy scar to charm me with."

"I never understood the sex appeal of scars," Callie mused. "Must be a guy thing."

Addison laughed and tugged Alex's ear teasingly. "Told you." Alex tried to ignore the tingling on his earlobe from where her fingers held it and made a face.

"Why are you women ganging up on me?" he asked pathetically, unable to keep the lopsided grin from his face. "I think I've taken enough of a beating for today, thank you."

"Aw, poor little Karev," Callie and Addison cooed simultaneously. Callie's pager beeped, causing her laughter to cut short.

"Okay, well I have to go right now, but I want details later, okay?" Callie announced, barely waiting for the confirmation from Addison before disappearing behind the doorframe.

Hopping off the exam table, Alex let himself finally hug her, pulling her back to his chest and placing his chin on her shoulder. Why, he had no idea, but it felt right. "I'm sorry for making you deal with all of this."

Addison closed her eyes for a moment and just let herself enjoy the feeling of him holding her. "It's okay," she said. "I knew what I was getting myself into when I agreed to help you."

"What are you gonna tell Torres when she asks about it?"

"As much of the truth as possible," Addison answered. "It's easier to keep it straight then. She does know that I avoided you for a week for kissing you, though, and that wasn't all that long ago." Turning around in his arms, she placed her hands on his biceps, absently registering their incredible tone. "How about you come with me when I tell her? That way we both know what to say from then on."

Alex thought to himself and nodded after a second. "Sounds like a plan." Addison smiled in response, and he found his own lopsided smile—made even more so by the stitches in his jaw—forming on his face as he lost himself in her eyes. Something jolted Addison, and she dropped her eyes as if she just realized their physical proximity.

"We should probably get back to…" Stepping a good foot away from the man, she gestured out the door.

"Yeah," Alex agreed. He tried desperately to hide the disappointment in his voice, but he wasn't sure if he was entirely successful. He really shouldn't have yelled at her in the linen closet last week. Maybe then something might have happened just then. He followed her out of the exam room and called out to her as they parted ways, "Page me when you want to talk to Torres!"

"Will do!" Addison called over her shoulder, furiously trying to calm down her speeding heart, not trusting herself to actually turn around and look at him when she said so.

Despair in her eyes, she looked up at a clock on the wall. It was only just past midday. She didn't get off until five. And the _real_ charade wouldn't even start until tomorrow.

Addison suppressed a groan, not wanting to alarm the passing scrub nurse by doing so. She needed a shower—and she needed her stilettos back.

**A/N: I was pretty much done with what I needed to accomplish this chapter as soon as Callie congratulated Addie, but I couldn't find a good stopping place! So, Juli and all you other amazing readers, you benefitted from my lack of stoppage. You got a chapter twice as long as usual. Go you! Now REVIEW!**


	4. Don't Stand So Close To Me

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 4: Don't Stand So Close to Me

**A/N: This time, Juli didn't really nag me as much, but I have a feeling she'd get really pissed off at me if I didn't update anyway. Besides, I've already spoiled you with my last two updates. I might as well actually be a consistent updater on one story. Enjoy!**

**A/N2: This is an early birthday present for luvlexi714, whose birthday is tomorrow!**

At four o'clock, fresh out of the shower, Addison stood in the attendings' locker room in just a towel as she extracted her makeup bag from her locker—she always kept an extra set of makeup in the hospital. A girl couldn't go great nervous mommies looking like crap, and she had a reputation to uphold. She was more than exhausted, having spent the majority of the day in scrubs due to yet another emergency page right after lunch.

A small drain lay in the middle of the bathroom floor between the sinks and the shower stalls. Addison stood over it and bent over to wring out her long red locks. She heard the sound of someone entering the locker room and didn't bother to look up. Her hair took quite some effort to dry.

When she heard the husky greeting of her intern, Addison straightened in surprise, flipping her hair over her head so it was falling down her back. The hair was still wet enough to send a lot water flying Alex's way, and seeing as he was less than two feet away from her, he got hit by the water and some of her hair. Repeating his greeting in a less than happy manner, "Hey!" he wiped at his face to clear his eyes of water.

"Oh, God, sorry!" Addison rushed to apologize. "I didn't realize you were in here, and then I didn't realize you were standing so close to me."

"It's fine," Alex waved off. He lowered his hands—and felt his heart pumping twice as fast as before at the sight of a dripping wet Addison wrapped only in a towel.

Feeling his intense gaze on her, Addison felt the blood rush to the surface—she was sure she was pink from head to toe. She shifted uncomfortably and double-checked that her towel was secure and in no danger of falling down anytime soon. "So, uh, what can I do for you?"

Addison watched as Alex's eyes slid back into focus, and he shook his head a little as if to snap himself out of a daze. She tried not to read too much into that, but she was having difficulty ignoring the glow that warmed her insides.

"I just…" Alex's eyes slid out of focus again, before he jerked himself back to reality. "I just got off work, but before I went home, I wanted to touch base with you, so we could figure out how we are going to act around each other in front of others. We've done okay winging it, but I don't want things to be awkward between us."

"Very mature, Karev," Addison commented thoughtfully. "Okay, so then how do we figure out how to act with each other? Do we set rules?" The water soaking through the back of her towel was getting uncomfortable. Bending over, she continued to wring out her hair but made it apparent she was listening.

At the sight of her toned back, Alex almost started drooling. He always had a thing for nice backs. _Focus, damn it,_ he reprimanded himself. He coughed, trying to make up for his pause. "Um, we should probably set limits to how…affectionate we are with each other in public."

Addison tilted her head to the side so she could see him from the corner of her eye. "I'm calling off the engagement immediately if we have to be one of those nauseating couples who can't keep their hands off each other and finish each other's sentences," she declared heatedly.

"Oh, God, no," Alex grimaced. "I can't stand those couples, either. Nah, I figured at work, we can keep our relationship like it has been."

"What, me yelling at you, and you being a disinterested, cocky intern?" Addison teased. She knew he hadn't been disinterested since he'd returned to her service.

"Yeah," Alex laughed. "I know you're a stickler for professionalism, so we shouldn't change how we behave at work."

"You're scaring me with your reasonableness," she admitted, amusement in her voice as she turned to the side and flipped her head back as she straightened.

"Gee, thanks," he answered wryly. Her attention was on tying her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head to get it out of the way of her face, and Alex couldn't stop his eyes from trailing down her figure to where the back of her towel had ridden up, revealing just a hint of the swell at the top of her thighs. "But what about outside work?"

Lowering her hands, Addison cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. "We can flirt, and the occasional peck on the lips or cheek when appropriate," she suggested, trying in vain to squash the excitement that rose at the prospect of kissing him so familiarly. Little did she know that Alex was trying to do the same thing. "No excessive handholding, though. I don't want to be all mushy. Keep it playful."

Alex nodded his head in agreement. "Sounds like a plan." Looking down at his feet, Alex asked the question that he'd been simultaneously dying and afraid to ask since he walked in. "And in private?"

Addison froze halfway to reaching for her makeup bag. "Private?" she repeated shakily.

"I mean, do we stay all cold and professional when it's just us, or do we act like we do when we're outside work?" Secretly, Alex was praying she'd say the latter.

She turned around to face him full on, biting her lip. "I don't know, Alex," she sighed. "It would feel weird to act like we're in love enough to get married one second and then as if nothing has happened or ever will happen between us the next."

"So what are you suggesting?"

Addison took a deep breath, which accidentally loosened her towel. Alex didn't see anything, and she caught it in time. But Alex was almost embarrassed by how excited he'd been to see that towel lose its grip around her body. "We're allowed to be comfortable with each other, I should think," she started. "We could be…friends, in private."

"Friends would be nice," Alex agreed. "What about living arrangements?"

Uncomfortable and exhilarated by the prospect, Addison had been expecting this question. "Well, there's no way I'm living in Meredith Grey's house," she stated flatly. "I have a room at the Archfield, and it's big enough for two. We can stay there until this is all over."

Alex knew he shouldn't be surprised at his relief at hearing they would be living together for a short while. He shouldn't be surprised because he's been feeling some weird things about his boss lately. "Okay," he stammered, trying his hardest to conceal his satisfaction with their arrangement. He shouldn't be surprised because he hadn't been able to get her out of his head when Vanessa called and ended up blurting out her name. He shouldn't be surprised because he kissed her on the cheek when she agreed. He shouldn't be surprised because he kissed her for _real_ two weeks ago. He shouldn't be surprised because he missed her so much after he kissed her that he literally yelled at her just to get them back to what he had previously thought to be normal. He shouldn't be surprised…well, he shouldn't be surprised for a lot of reasons.

"Alex?" Addison's voice brought him back from his thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"Did you hear me?"

"What did you say?"

Sighing, Addison took that as a no. "I said I'll give you my spare hotel key now, and you can start to move your stuff. I'll join you once I've finished up here," she repeated patiently.

Alex looked confused. "Do we have another patient? Because I can stay for longer," he insisted.

She smiled at his gesture, but she shook her head. "No, it's the just paperwork that comes with running an entire wing of the hospital. It's tedious, but it has to get done. I'll probably just be an hour once I start." Alex nodded in understanding, still wondering why he offered to help when it would have been perfectly acceptable for him to leave as soon as his shift was over. "Um, Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"I need to get dressed, so if we're done here…?" Alex jerked in realization that he was the reason why she was still in a towel. Bobbing his head in an embarrassed apology, Alex started backing his way to the door. Despite herself, Addison laughed. "Alex," she called.

"Huh?" He stopped and straightened, showing his cheeks to be fire red. An amused smile brightened Addison's currently make-up-free features as she walked past him and dug around in her bag, coming up with a hotel keycard. "Oh, yeah." Stepping forward to retrieve the card, he tripped on his own foot and went careening into Addison with a surprised yell.

Landing with a resounding thud, Addison opened her eyes—which she didn't remember closing—to find Alex lying flat on top of her, with his hand somehow underneath her head. His other hand gripped her waist. Concern swam in his dark brown eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked right away. "I'm so sorry if I hurt you."

Hurriedly, Addison nodded. "I'm fine, I promise," she assured him.

Alex gently moved his hand from the back of her head to the side, unconsciously stroking her hairline. "I tried to make sure you didn't hit your head on the floor."

Addison flashed him a grateful smile. "Don't worry, it didn't."

"Good." After the concern was alleviated, Alex became fully aware of their situation. He was pressed all the way against her entire body, and he was all too conscious of the fact that she was wearing nothing but that fluffy white towel. His lungs stopped working for minute when he realized his leg had fallen between hers. "Wouldn't want to lose my fiancée," he cracked breathlessly.

Addison rolled her eyes, but she couldn't hide the quirk of her lips as they fought to let out a laugh. Alex felt his eyes darken at that innocent movement of her lips. He was itching to just lower his head to hers and ravage her lips. He wanted to pull her by the waist as close to him as possible and slowly inch away the towel…

Something had changed about the man on top of her. She felt his body stiffen, as if he was struggling to control himself, and his hand had tightened on her waist. Her eyes sought his out and widened at the obvious lust in them. Those eyes awoke something fierce in her lower abdomen, and her breathing became labored. Squeezing her eyes closed, she blamed the breathing thing on the fact that he was currently lying on top of her, crushing her air supply. "Alex?" she panted, still refusing to open her eyes.

"Yeah?" he replied in a voice all but dripping with desire. Hearing her say his name like that wasn't helping matters, either.

"I can't breathe." Addison felt the body above her stiffen some more, but she could tell it was less from restraint as it was from chagrin. Within a second, the weight lifted from atop her, and the hand that had been clutching at her waist moved softly down her side to take hold of her hand so he could help her up. Opening her eyes, Addison warmed at Alex's efforts to avert his eyes as she straightened, giving her time to make sure she was properly covered. "Thank you," she whispered, returning her attention the man standing almost right up against her, never having moved from where he straightened.

"Sorry about tripping," Alex apologized softly.

"It's fine. I didn't get hurt, so stop saying you're sorry," Addison chided. He still had that look in his eyes, and she didn't trust herself around him for much longer. She stepped away and bent down for the card that had fallen when she had. "Take the card, and I'll see you in a little bit, okay?"

After he'd left, Addison closed her eyes and took an incredibly long, deep breath to calm her nerves. He really needed to stop getting her all worked up over nothing. She was Addison freaking Forbes Montgomery. Even her husband was the one who chased her. She wasn't used to mooning over a guy and wishing he'd notice her.

"You suck, Alex Karev," she growled to the empty locker room, before reaching into her bag and resuming getting dressed.

**A/N: I really didn't expect this one scene to be the entire chapter, but it ended up being so long that it seemed an appropriate stopping place. If you want to see anything else, though, you're going to have to review!**


	5. Noodles of Fun

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 5: Noodles of Fun

**A/N: I still really, really appreciate all the positive feedback this fic has gotten. To be honest, I didn't expect such a big response to continue past the third chapter. While it's true it's dropped a little bit, I really can't complain. Thank you guys so much! Enjoy!**

Exhausted, Addison trudged up through the Archfield's lobby and into the waiting elevator. As soon as she pressed the button with "22" printed on it, her BlackBerry lit up and started buzzing in her hand.

"I have service in the elevator?" she mused to herself as she picked up the call. "Addison Montgomery," she answered.

"Hey, it's Callie," came the voice through the receiver. She sounded bone weary.

"Hey, you okay? Did you just get out of surgery?" Addison looked down at her watch and whistled to herself. Five and a half hours. Not bad.

"Yeah," Callie responded. "I just needed to tell you I have to cancel our dish date tonight. I got pegged to run the pit for the night in two hours, so I'm going to take a nap and then get a very large cup of the strongest coffee I can find."

The elevator dinged, having reached her floor, and the doors opened to let her out. "That's fine," Addison assured her as she stepped out of the elevator and started making her way to Room 2214. "Another time. Go sleep."

"Thanks, Addison," Callie exhaled. "I'll talk to you later." With that, both parties hung up their cell phones.

Pulling out her keycard from her purse, Addison inserted into the door and turned the handle. She dropped her bags, key and phone on the table next to the door and kicked off her heels into the open closet. She closed the door behind her and hobbled to the bed, her arches misshapen thanks to the stilettos. She knew it was only five thirty in the evening and that it was way too early to go to sleep, but with the events of the day, she couldn't help but collapse face first on the king sized cloud.

She shimmied up to the top and buried her face in her pillow, taking a long, deep breath. Quiet at last. Nobody was yelling at her. Nobody was punching anyone. Nobody was tripping and falling on top of her, though she really couldn't say she entirely hated that particular experience. For the first time all day, she let herself relax.

She didn't get relax all that long, though, since five minutes later, the door opened, revealing a heavy laden Alex Karev. Moaning in frustration, Addison buried her face deeper in her pillow when she heard him relieve himself of his burdens next to the bed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she refused to move from her prostrate position. "Go away," she whimpered.

An amused, deep chuckle sent shivers up her spine that she stubbornly refused to admit to feeling. He hadn't even been staying with her for five minutes, and already he was getting to her. How the hell was she supposed to survive whatever length of time his ex-girlfriend was visiting?

"That's all my stuff," Alex announced, stretching his arms over his head. He received a muffled response from the redhead on the bed. "Wow, what a welcome."

"Shut up," she mumbled into the pillow. "I'm way too tired to deal with you right now."

Shrugging, Alex bent down to retrieve a bulging plastic bag from his belongings. "Too tired even for Thai food?"

In a flash, Addison was up and leaning forward on her knees on the bed. She reached out and eyed the bag hungrily. "Gimme," she demanded, reminding him for all the world of a teenage Addison. The thought was intriguing. He wondered what she was like as a teenager. Wild? Timid? Cursed with bad acne and braces?

Alex allowed himself another soft chortle as he reached into the bag and pulled out a tall rectangular box. "I didn't know what you liked, but I figured you'd like Pad Thai. I hope you will, anyway," Alex amended. "It's my favorite."

Addison eyed him warily as if she were trying to discern whether or not he was lying about his preferences. "Good choice, Karev," she finally said. "It's tied with Panang curry with chicken as my favorite."

Alex scrunched up his face. "I'm not a huge curry fan," he told her as he pulled out the chopsticks and settled on the bed next to her. She lowered herself from her knees and shuffled off the bed. "Where are you going?"

"I'm changing," she answered, handing him her box of food with a death glare warning him not to touch it. "I'd rather not flash you when I sit Indian style." Alex's eyes darkened slightly at the thought, but he didn't do a good job of hiding it.

A mischievous glint appeared in Addison's eyes at seeing his lusty stare. She lowered herself to his level, bending at the hip and placing her hands on either side of him on the bed to brace herself. Less than two inches from his face, but not close enough to miss the dazed look on Alex's face, Addison caught his eye and flicked her gaze to his open box of Thai food. A sly smile grew on her face when she saw he got the message.

Slowly, Alex fumbled with his chopsticks before bringing them up to her mouth, a bundle of noodles carefully perched on the ends. Never breaking eye contact, Addison leaned even closer and let her mouth surround the noodles before ever so slowly sliding her lips off the ends of the chopsticks. To finish it off, she let a small moan of pleasure fall past her lips as she softly chewed the food.

Another smirk adorned her face as she straightened, licking her lips in satisfaction. "Thanks," she whispered huskily. "You know how I hungry I was."

A strangled grunt escaped from Alex's throat, following her tantalizing movements as she bent with her back to him to retrieve her change of clothes before disappearing into the bathroom. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling the all too familiar rush of warmth travel down his abdomen. Was she trying to kill him?

Safely hidden behind the bathroom door, Addison clutched her clothes to her breast and leaned back on the door, taking long, slow breaths. Part of her was mortified at what she just did. She had _never_ been so bold with anyone except for Derek, and it had taken her years to work herself up to that with him. What on earth had possessed her to do such a thing? But another part of her was thrilled at the reaction she knew she earned. She saw his eyes darken before she turned around, and she felt his gaze hot on her as she made her way to the bathroom.

_Shake it off, Addie_, she urged herself. She changed into a pair of women's pajama shorts made to look like boxers and a pale pink tank top. Folding her work clothes and placing them on the counter, Addison tied her hair up in a bun and set to washing her face, relishing the cool water against her warm cheeks.

Alex chucked off his shoes and scooted a little farther back on the bed so he could cross his legs in front of him. He dug into his noodles with a renewed fervor, trying to erase the vision of her lips sliding slowly on his chopsticks—with which he now ate—from his mind. But that was just about as successful as forgetting the small moan she'd emitted.

The sound of the bathroom door opening made him look up from his food, and only the sheer willpower not to look like an idiot with food in his mouth kept him from letting his jaw drop. Addison walked out in a skin-tight tank top and matching boxers that fell well above mid-thigh, and her face was clean of any makeup, framed by tousled red hair. Feasting his eyes on her as she deposited her work clothes in a hamper in the closet, she turned. A hungry look manifested in her eyes as she all but dove for the box of Pad Thai he was still holding for her.

Soon they were both sitting comfortably in the middle of the king sized bed. Addison let out a small groan and closed her eyes in delight as the first bite fell on her tongue, tilting her head back ever so slightly. That sound, combined with one of her mile-long legs stretched out in front of Alex, made him very uncomfortable. Seriously. Was the woman trying to kill him?

He must have been staring at her strangely, because she laughed bashfully. "Sorry, I'm starving," she declared.

"I can tell." Addison looked up at him curiously. There was something oddly…strained about his voice. Rather than get caught up in another one of his melting stares, she cast her eyes around the large hotel suite.

"Is this all your stuff?" she asked incredulously.

Alex laughed a little at her surprise. "I'm just an intern, remember? I don't really have the time or money to go shopping for things. Besides, I'm a guy. I get along just fine," he explained.

Addison rolled her eyes at his last statement. "You really think a lot of yourself don't you?"

Smirking, Alex was poised to stuff more noodles in his mouth. "It's not bravado if it's the truth," he retorted before taking the bite. Addison hid her smile behind some more noodles.

**8D**

Addison lay on her side in the middle of her bed, but she turned on her back when the sound of shuffling alerted her to Alex's presence. Dressed in a black wife beater and gray sweatpants, Alex had her thanking the fact that the lights were off to hide her blush. Alex was definitely in excellent shape, the wife beater showing muscular arms and hinting at the toned chest underneath. She wondered what it would feel like to feel those arms wrap around her and pull her into that chest when she _wasn't_ sobbing into it because of her ex-husband.

The thought made her eyes start to water just a little bit, but it was enough to make her turn back onto her side and hide her face from her intern. The last time a man slept in her bed without having first engaged in certain other activities was when she was still married to Derek. She silently cursed the tears that pricked her eyes. She was over him. She _was_. She just used to be so happy was all. She missed being that happy, feeling so safe with strong arms hugging her back to his chest.

Alex got under the covers, his weight causing Addison to roll backwards into him just a little bit so that she was half on her back and half on her side. Looking into her face, he was alarmed to see the sadness etched on it. "Hey," he whispered, "what's wrong?"

Shaking her head, Addison turned fully on her side again, curling up slightly into a loose fetal position. "Just nostalgic, I guess," she replied sadly. "Everything's just happening so fast."

Unable to explain the way his heart tightened at the immense melancholy in her voice, Alex settled himself on his pillow and wrapped arm all the way around her waist, pulling her back into his chest. "I know," he muttered soothingly into her hair. "I'm still sorry I got you sucked into all of this."

Addison didn't answer him, feigning that she'd already fallen asleep. She'd just been wondering what it would be like, and now he was actually holding her in his arms while they slept, as if they were actually together in reality. She'd expected it to be extremely awkward and stiff, especially considering the fact that she was his boss and several years older than him. But it wasn't at all. She felt at ease, safe and…warm.

A small smile bloomed onto her face as she felt him shift a little bit closer—there wasn't really much space to move closer into anyway—and bury his face in her hair. She could get used to this.

**A/N: I'm one word short of two thousand. Whatever, I really hope you enjoyed this, because I really loved writing this chapter. I actually like the entire chapter as opposed to just the second half. Anyway, tell me what you think and REVIEW!**


	6. Breaking the Rules

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 6: Breaking the Rules

**A/N: Once again, I really do like this entire chapter. I have a feeling you'll enjoy it, want to slap me and then enjoy it some more. So let the first round of enjoyment begin! **

Addison's eyes fluttered open with the sound of her alarm going off, signaling it was five o'clock in the morning. The muscular arm tightened around her waist as the man behind her stubbornly buried his face in her shoulder, groaning, "Turn it off." Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, she made to get out of bed and turn off the blaring alarm, but the arm tightened more, anchoring her in place and bringing her falling back into his chest. "Let's just sleep some more," he suggested, his breath floating over her bare shoulder.

"Alex," Addison started with a sleepy laugh, "we have work."

Alex didn't move a muscle except for his lips, which brushed the skin on her shoulder lightly as he said, "We can be late."

Twisting her neck so she looked him dead in the face—his eyes were still closed—Addison quirked an eyebrow. "Have you _met_ me?"

Alex finally opened his eyes grumpily. "Have you met _me_?"

"That's not an argument," Addison dismissed before turning her head back to its normal direction and trying once again to get out of the bed—unsuccessfully. "Alex, I'm pretty sure that missing work because I was trapped in bed all day would require our relationship to become much more intimate," she declared, before a devious plan made a wicked smile come to her face.

Wriggling around so that she faced him completely, Addison placed both her hands on Alex's chest and used all her weight to push him onto his back. Surprise widened his eyes as she ended up on top of him, straddling him with her legs. Her hands were still firmly planted on his chest, while his had moved their way down to her bared thighs to keep her from getting off the bed. He didn't know why he decided to keep her from leaving, but he figured it would make for some fun.

"How intimate?" Alex asked with a smirk. He really did enjoy the feel of his boss sitting on top of him probably more than was proper. But then again, what about their current situation was at all proper?

Instead of answering him, Addison leaned to reach her nightstand, with her legs tightening around Alex's waist to keep herself from falling rather ungracefully, to first turn off the offending alarm and then to grab a small packet of Listerine mouth strips. Alex's grip tightened on her legs. Opening the packet, she removed two and straightened. She put on in her mouth and then returned on her of hands to his chest. "Open up," she said seductively.

A hungry look entered Alex's dark brown eyes as he obeyed and let her place the mouth strip delicately on his tongue. To take his mind off the burning in his mouth, Alex repeated, "How intimate?" He had a feeling he was going to find out soon enough.

A tingling sensation traveled up his chest when he felt her hands slide slowly up to wrap lazily around his neck. Bending down so that their noses touched, Addison smiled. "Let's make it a game, shall we?"

"A game?" he asked hoarsely.

She nodded, which coincidentally made it seem like they were rubbing noses affectionately. "To make this whole pretend engagement thing a little more…fun," she whispered. "See how long it takes."

"How long it takes for what?"

"For us to break the rules completely," Addison answered huskily. She followed her words by closing the small gap between their mouths in a searing kiss. Alex's fingers dug almost painfully into her thighs at the contact. But soon they loosened and took to sliding their way up her silky skin and planting themselves firmly on the small of her back, pushing her more firmly against him.

A shot of electricity shot down Addison's spine as she tugged on Alex's neck to pull herself closer to his tantalizing lips. She felt his fingers playing with the hem of her tank top, which had ridden up a little on her back. His touch ghosting across the skin on her lower back made her unconsciously grind her hips into Alex's, exhilarated by the enthusiastic response to her movements.

The alarm went off again. Ignoring it, Addison continued to lose herself in the kiss. But it wouldn't shut off. If anything, it was getting louder. Annoyed, she ripped her lips from his and glared up at the bedside clock. Her heart stopped. The LED screen still read five o'clock sharp.

Jerking awake, Addison lifted her head off the soft down pillow and stared at her blaring alarm clock—5 a.m. There was still a weight across her waist, which, she looked down to see was Alex's arm. She heard him breathing the steady and slow breaths of sleep. Damn.

With a groan, she propped herself on one arm and reached over to turn off the alarm with the other. Still in her sitting position, with Alex's arm now in her lap while he was still dead to the world, she stared down at the intern in consternation. She didn't appreciate the fact that this man had managed to weasel his way into her dreams now.

Taking out a small portion of her sudden frustration, she pushed at his shoulder to wake him up. "Karev, come on, you have rounds in an hour." Alex grunted a response and turned onto his other side, taking the warmth of his arm from her lap. Her eyes narrowed at his action. He needed to learn that Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery _always_ got her way. "I'm taking off all my clothes now."

Like a bullet, Alex was sitting up next to her…and pouting in disappointment. "That's mean," he declared.

"Well, tough," she shot back as she made her way out of the bed. She started going through her dresser for her bra, slip and underwear.

"You know you squirm in your sleep," Alex commented. He looked uncomfortably down at his lap. Her hips, in particular, had kept grinding their way into his, and it had taken all his willpower not to wake her up and have his way with her last night.

Blushing, Addison thanked the fact that her back was turned to him. She pretended to ignore him. "You have to be at the hospital in an hour, so unless you were intending to go hungry and _walk_ there…"

Alex shrugged, eyeing her from his position on the bed. "I used to run to the hospital," he announced. "I wouldn't have minded."

Addison straightened and shot him such a look it had _him_ wondering about his own sanity. "You _ran_ to the hospital?"

Smirking, Alex scooted out of bed and made his way to his unpacked bags. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, in my book," he stated simply.

Addison gagged as she headed to the bathroom for a shower. "You disgust me sometimes, Karev."

**8D**

Addison and Alex pulled up in her black Lexus and into her parking spot in front of Seattle Grace Hospital. With a clear view of the front of the hospital, Alex almost choked on his last bite of blueberry muffin at the sight of a tall Amazonian-looking woman. Her long auburn locks were tied into an elegant high ponytail, and her body, although she possessed curves in all the right places, just exuded strength. She really hadn't changed from when he knew her.

Addison whipped her head around at the sound of Alex's coughing fit. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Vanessa's here," he declared once his coughs had subsided. "The brunette standing in front of the hospital." Addison let her gaze follow his and sucked in a breath. She was beautiful. Addison hated her just a little more. "Addison," Alex called her to look at him again. "Get ready to act, okay? I'm going to open the door for you."

The last sentence had Addison furrow her eyebrows in confusion. Talk about a non sequitur. But before she had a chance to comment on it, Alex was on the other side of her, opening her car door for her with an almost laughably happy expression on his face. She couldn't suppress an amused smile as she accepted his proffered hand and stepped out of the shiny black car.

He kept the smile in place until he'd closed the door behind her, then he pushed her up against the car faster than Addison could blink. His body was flush against hers, and his hands gripped gently at her waist. "How do you feel about stage kisses?" he asked softly into her ear. "I need the first time she sees us together to make an impression."

Immediately, Addison's mind flashed to her all-too-realistic dream from that morning. She nodded slowly, growing numb with the realization that Vanessa's presence made their charade all the more real.

Soon Alex's lips were on hers, and it was like a fire had ignited between the two of them. A day and a night of built up sexual tension and flirting served to be enough to blow her fantasy kiss completely out of the water. Her entire body was now resting on the car door, her back arching into Alex's chest as their mouths fought for dominance of their all-consuming kiss. She dropped her bags and allowed her free hands to snake up to his neck, pulling his head closer.

Alex felt all pretenses fly out the window as soon as his lips touched hers, and within seconds, he'd slipped his tongue past her lips. He took a small step forward and sandwiched her even more between himself and her car, his fingers digging into her sides. When he felt her hands tugging him closer by his neck, he couldn't resist biting her bottom lip softly, eliciting a thrilling moan of pleasure.

Unfortunately, that moan leaving her throat also alerted Addison to the fact that she was making out with her _intern_ right in front of the hospital. Breaking the kiss, she leaned her head back on the car and panted. She kept her eyelids closed for a moment, allowing those stars behind her eyes to at least fade away a little bit before facing the day. "That was nothing like our first kiss," she breathed without really thinking about what she was saying.

Alex, who'd only let her lean back her head and nothing else by not moving a muscle from the way he was very inappropriately pushing his boss up against her car, tried to get his mind to work again. "You…you think about that kiss?" he puffed.

The question seemed to jerk Addison out of her haze enough for her to notice her slip. "Well, it's just an observation. Being fake-engaged to you really made a difference in our kisses." Alex let out a smile in his attempt to get oxygen. They'd really gone at it. "Do you think we were convincing enough? Because if she wasn't even looking, then I'm going to slap you upside the head for possibly ruining any respect I had from my peers for making out in the parking lot," she threatened.

Stepping away, Alex bent down to retrieve Addison's forgotten bags. "She saw it. I can feel her eyes boring into the back of my skull from here," he assured her. He handed her the bags and placed his hand on the small of her back as they started for the hospital.

"Either way, you just broke a rule, Mister," Addison prodded. She finally resumed breathing evenly and successfully ignored the hand on her back. It was just an act, after all.

"And which rule would that be?"

"The one where we agreed we'd keep public us from becoming one of those nauseating couples," she sniffed. "Your little display back there did just that. And this is our place of _work_, for God's sakes, Alex. I'm your _boss_ here, and you had me pressed up against my car!" Addison had no idea why she was hissing at him. She really wasn't angry at all for what just occurred.

"One, you were a _more_ than willing participant. Two, maybe I enjoyed breaking that rule," he shot back with a triumphant smirk.

"Karev, we haven't even been fake engaged for two days, and you're already finding pleasure in breaking the rules?" Addison asked desperately. She _needed_ those rules so she wouldn't jump his bones the second they were alone, damn it!

"I like pushing my boundaries," he stated.

"Fine," Addison decided. She found herself echoing her dream. "We'll see how long it takes."

"How long it takes for what?"

Fixing him with a sultry stare, Addison whispered, "For us to break the rules completely."

**A/N: How was that? Hopefully enough to garner some reviews. And no, Juli, I did not steal the running to the hospital thing from you. I remember it from the season 1 episode when Christina has the flu. You better be pretty damn happy, Juli, considering I wrote this without any nagging on your part. I think all of you should tell Juli that she should be happy **_**or else**_**! REVIEW!**


	7. She's No Redgrave

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 7: She's No Redgrave

**A/N: Sorry it's taken me a bit longer to get this chapter out. I guess the writing bug just decided not to bite me for a little while. But there's nothing like reading countless numbers of fics to guilt a person into a writing mood! Enjoy!**

Richard, Seattle Grace's Chief of Surgery, turned away from the coffee cart in the lobby. As he started to take a thankful sip of his coffee, he very nearly spit it out when his eyes fell on Addison—_his_ little Addison!—pressed up against her car with what looked to be Karev's tongue down her throat. What the _hell_ was that cocky intern thinking doing that to his Addie?

**8D**

"_Fine," Addison decided. She found herself echoing her dream. "We'll see how long it takes."_

"_How long it takes for what?"_

_Fixing him with a sultry stare, Addison whispered, "For us to break the rules completely."_

Alex gawked at the woman walking alongside him, and he only just managed to school his face back to its normal, slightly cocky expression by the time they approached the woman he had once thought to be the love of his life.

"Vanessa," he greeted with surprise.

"Hey, Alex," she smiled. Her voice was delicate, almost like wind chimes, and her smile was a perfect crescent moon with undeniably straight, white teeth. Addison resented her immediately—and would have anyway, whether or not Alex had told her the story concerning the Amazonian woman. "It's been a long time." She made as if to hug him, making Addison's breath catch in her throat. Alex seemed to have sensed this, because he never let his hand leave Addison's lower back. He awkwardly wrapped his other arm around his ex-girlfriend.

"What are you doing here?" he asked when they had parted. "I thought we were meeting for lunch."

"Oh, we still are," Vanessa hurried to answer. "I just couldn't wait to see you, and I remembered you telling me you worked here."

_Right_, Alex grunted inwardly, _I only asked you to come out here with me_.

Addison's mouth twisted involuntarily at the forced enthusiasm in Vanessa's voice. _You couldn't wait to see him or to see whether or not he was lying about me?_ she silently accused. She saw Vanessa's dark brown eyes flit to her, and she quickly turned her grimace into a small smile before she was caught.

"And who is this?" Vanessa drawled out. Addison couldn't place it, but there was almost a sense of superiority in the woman's voice as she looked down her nose—despite the fact that they were of a height with each other—at the redhead in Alex's arms.

Alex jumped, embarrassed. Already, he was blowing it by forgetting to introduce his fiancée! "Oh, right! Um, Vanessa, this is my fiancée, Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery," he introduced formally. "Addie, this is Vanessa Martin. She's an old friend."

Addison caught on quickly. In a mock stage—yet believable—whisper, she leant into his ear and asked, "Is this _that_ Vanessa?" Alex nodded quickly, causing an almost smug smile to bloom on her face. "Oh, okay. It's a pleasure to meet you, Vanessa," she greeted graciously.

"Charmed," Vanessa replied tightly, obviously a little miffed by the exchange. Reverting her attention back to Alex, she seemed to regain her brightness. "So, are we still on for lunch?"

"Of course, I can't wait to meet Ben—" Alex lied through his teeth, only to be cut off by the appearance of an incensed Richard Weber in the doorway to the hospital.

"Uh oh," Addison breathed, her face blanching. "He probably saw our little display on my car," she whispered furiously. "I swear you're going to get me fired one of these days, Alex Karev."

Alex rubbed a small circle on her back seemingly to soothe her. "As if the Chief would fire his favorite person in the world," he retorted.

"Shut up." So it wasn't the most dignified response, but his hand moving in slow circles was very hard to ignore. Her eyes widened when she realized what he was doing—the games had begun.

"Dr. Montgomery, a word?" Richard called in a tightly reined in voice.

"If I get fired over you, Karev, don't hesitate to think I won't make you pay for it," Addison threatened softly. She reached up to his chin softly and pecked him on the lips, much to his surprise. She tried not to smirk at him—she knew he'd forgotten that they'd agreed to small kisses on the lips in public. "See you after rounds. Again, it was great meeting you Vanessa. I'll see you at lunch." Then, with a stoic face, she turned to face an almost irate Chief of Surgery. She walked calmly toward him, neither hurrying nor dawdling, and smiled, "Good morning, Richard."

Alex watched with wonderment as Addison entered the hospital with the Chief as if it were any other day. That woman could make walking into the lion's den seem like a walk in the park with her confidence.

Vanessa's voice brought his attention back to her. "So that was Addison."

Nodding, Alex fixed his gaze on the woman in front of him. "That was Addison," he confirmed.

"She seems…nice."

"She's a hell of a lot more than _nice_, Nessa," Alex pressed, not at all lying.

"Why would she get fired over you?" she asked curiously, ignoring his use of her nickname. She was trying to be subtle but failed miserably. Alex could tell she was trying to get dirt on his fiancée, to see if they were actually engaged.

"She won't," Alex insisted.

"But why does she seem to think so?"

"Addie has a thing for staying professional," he improvised, her nickname slipping out without his notice. At least he was telling the truth. "Our engagement is still new enough that the Chief probably hadn't heard about it, although it caused enough commotion when it came out."

"But still, why would she get fired for it?"

"She _wouldn't_, Vanessa. The Chief loves her like he would a daughter. He's probably going to call me into his office to talk to me about my intentions soon," Alex declared. Suddenly his premonitions seemed spot on, for right before Vanessa could respond, Patricia, the Chief's secretary, sidled up to them.

"Dr. Karev," she greeted in a thin, reedy voice. "The Chief wants to see you in his office before rounds."

"What did I tell you?" Alex shot Vanessa a look. _Saved by the bell_. "I'll see you for lunch."

"Yeah, sure," she replied, shocked at his accuracy. "See you then."

"Great," Alex confirmed before walking into the hospital with Patricia. As soon as the doors slid closed behind them, Alex shot Patricia a grateful look. "Your timing is impeccable."

**8D**

Addison was already seated in one of the two rather comfortable leather chairs in front of Richard's desk, studiously avoiding the man leaning against said desk with his arms crossed sternly in front of her. When Alex came in, one look at Addison's still form and Richard's unsmiling face was enough to tell him he was in for a lecture, just as he'd predicted to Vanessa.

"Take a seat, Dr. Karev," Richard ordered menacingly. Alex hastened to comply; there had been a barely veiled threat behind the Chief's words that warned unpleasant occurrences if he did not do as he said. Once Alex was situated in the other leather chair beside Addison, Richard pounced, "What the _hell_ were you doing by pressing Dr. Montgomery—your _boss_—up against her car this morning?"

Alex gulped. "So you saw that…" he trailed off sheepishly. Addison shot him an exasperated look, to which he responded with his own bewildered one. Honestly, what did the woman expect him to say?

"Yes, Dr. Karev, I saw that," the Chief confirmed in a dark voice. "What I don't see is the _why_. Why did you think it was appropriate to…" He seemed very discomfited with the thought of the words "making out" said in relation to Addison. "Why did you feel you could act like that with your superior in the parking lot of your place of work?"

"I-proposed-to-Addison-and-she-said-yes," Alex blurted out in one breath. He suddenly felt like an inept high school boy being interrogated by his girlfriend's father for the first time. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered that Addison's jaw had dropped open.

Addison had been planning on easing the Chief into the news slowly, so as not to cause the blow up that was about to happen in 3…2…1…

"You _what?_" Richard demanded. He shot from his spot leaning on the desk to towering over the intern menacingly.

"Blast-off," she whispered under her breath.

"You-you're _marrying_ her?" he asked, his face going red. He looked like he was having trouble getting oxygen into his lungs. Addison stood up quickly.

She rushed over to him and soothingly said, "Here, sit down." Once he had taken a seat in the one Addison vacated, she squatted down to eye level, her hands resting on his knees in earnest. "Yes, we're engaged."

"Why didn't you tell me, Addie?" Richard asked softly. He never could be truly angry at his star, the woman he fondly thought of as his daughter.

"He just proposed a couple days ago," she answered calmly. "I haven't had the chance." Glancing over at her stock-still fake-fiancé, Addison shot him a small glare at his total lack of help with the situation. The way he'd so carelessly shocked the Chief made it so that she had to do even more damage control. "I was actually going to ask you to give me away."

Richard did a double take. "What about your father?"

"I doubt the Captain would approve of my remarrying so soon," Addison sighed. Alex admired her flawless cover. Had the woman not been such a phenomenal surgeon, she would have made a killing as an actress. "Bizzy, either. But if by some chance, the Captain _does_ want to give me away again, then I'd want you there on my other arm."

It was obvious to anyone with eyes how touched Richard was by this gesture. He actually felt a little misty-eyed, which he quickly blinked away. "I'd love to, Addie," he agreed fondly. Then he turned his attention back to the intern who was now sitting next to him. "But no more of the…public displays in the parking lot, okay, Karev? It's not professional, and I don't need any more distractions for the hospital staff. Got it?"

"Absolutely, sir," Alex nodded frantically.

**8D**

Alex left the Chief's office earlier than Addison to prep for rounds. As he entered the locker room, his ears were assaulted by catcalls and hoots from the other male interns. He made his way to his locker hesitantly, ignoring the offered high fives and shrugging off the hands patting him on the back.

"What's going on?" Izzie Stevens, another ex-girlfriend of Alex's, asked as she looked up from her locker when Alex approached.

One of the interns that neither of them knew slapped Alex proudly on his back. "Our man here was just plastered all over little miss McHot and had her pushed up against her car," he announced to many more hollers and celebrations.

"McHot?" Izzie quirked her eyebrow at Alex in confusion.

"Dr. Montgomery," a passing Christina Yang yawned tiredly. Izzie's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Evil Spawn and Bambi gave her that when she was still the She-Shepherd."

"Thanks a lot," he grumbled to the disgruntled Korean woman.

"What are getting all upset at me about? You're the one who's marrying her," Christina shot back as she spread herself out on a bench and closed her eyes.

Of course, that was the one moment when all the hooting and hollering over his actions that morning had quieted down, and a hush fell over the locker room. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the intern who still had his arm proudly around him mouthing the word "marrying" to one of his friends in a confused manner.

"Who told you that?" Alex demanded softly.

"Meredith," Christina supplied easily, not even bothering to open her eyes. "Shepherd apparently wouldn't shut up about it last night, so she kept me up all night on the phone ranting about it." She opened her eyes briefly to lift her head and fix a glare on the dazed intern. "I fully blame you for my lack of sleep, Evil Spawn."

"Is that true, Alex?" Izzie asked. Alex looked over at the blonde bombshell—and felt nothing. Odd. Up until recently, he'd still had a thing for her.

"Yes," he confirmed. He kept his eyes trained on her face, hoping the news wouldn't hurt her too much. Not that he really cared in _that_ way anymore. Actually, come to think of it, just a sign of regret or remorse over hearing his engagement would help nurse his bruised pride. But she just broke into a congratulatory smile.

"Then I'm happy for you," she stated simply. Her smile never left her face.

"Thanks," he accepted. Strangely, a smile lit up his own features as he moved to his own locker and got ready for the day.

**8D**

"You've caused a never-ending stream of questions for me, Karev," Addison grumbled as he fell into step slightly behind her after rounds. "I hope you're happy."

"Hey, you didn't get attacked by dozens of high fives and pats on the back in the locker room," Alex retorted. "One guy slapped me so hard that my shoulder is starting to bruise."

Addison shot him an amused smile over her shoulder. "Wuss," she teased, before flipping her red hair over her shoulder and staring straight ahead once again.

Alex didn't take the bait, however much he wanted to. Grabbing her gently by the elbow, he pulled her to the side of the hallway out of the direct flow of foot traffic. "So what did you think of Vanessa?" he prodded.

To his surprise, Addison let out an unimpressed grunt and propped her fist on her hip. "Well, she's no Redgrave," she said curtly.

"Who?"

Addison rolled her eyes. "Please tell me you've heard of Vanessa Redgrave," she pleaded desperately. When Alex responded with a blank stare, Addison's face darkened. "It is a sad, sad thing that you don't know who Vanessa Redgrave is."

"I'm sorry?" Alex really couldn't see what the big deal was, but he knew better than just to come out and say it.

A devilish smile graced her porcelain features as she remembered the game they started outside. Now she was really going to get to him for getting to her so easily. She stepped closer, much closer, and let her lips ghost across his ear as she whispered huskily, "There are ways to make up for that."

Alex's jaw went slack and his eyes wide. But before he could say anything, Addison was once again all professional and walking away with a certain swing in her step.

**A/N: I hope you liked it! I actually didn't mean for it to be this long, but think of it as a special make-up present for my lack of freakishly fast updating. I hope it was enough for you guys to REVIEW!**


	8. Once Upon a Time

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 8: Once Upon A Time

**A/N: I know, I know, it's been a while. I just got a new laptop, Maisy Cha Cha, and therefore no longer have Microsoft Word. I'm having to make do with TextEdit. But really, it hasn't been all that long. Don't forget that usually you're lucky to get an update within six months. Seriously, this is amazing progress. Anyway, without any further ado, Chapter 8!**

**A/N 2: I realize this is pretty OOC, but it just seemed to follow the natural progression of this story, you know?**

The morning passed in the blink of an eye and over the span of a year. When Addison and Alex were around each other, they found ways to make the time fly by—a touch here, a lusty glance there, just enough to drive the other person crazy, as per the game they initiated in the parking lot. Alex would walk so closely behind her that she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck. Addison would flash her patented bed eyes at him as she would slowly lean over in front of him to get a chart from behind the nurses' station counter, giving him a nice view down her shirt.

Once she even found it fitting to whisper to him throatily in passing, "Having fun lusting after your fake fiancée?"

He growled back, "Just about as much as you are." They both made eye contact at that moment, indigo irises meeting nearly black ones.

The time _between_ meetings, however, seemed to drag on forever on both ends. Addison would fidget at the nurses' station, twirling her red hair around her left finger as she filled out charts with her right. Alex would power-walk everywhere and pace impatiently in front of the lab—the only time he spent away from Addison was when he was running labs and doing other scut work—until the results came, at which point he would all but sprint back to the OB/GYN wing.

Needless to say, by the time 12:30 rolled around, Addison and Alex were thoroughly frustrated both with each other and with themselves for letting the other affect them so. She was standing in the lobby with her back to him when he came down the stairs, having changed out of his scrubs for lunch. A devilish glint twinkled in the intern's chocolate brown eyes as he approached her from behind.

Addison wanted to jump out of her skin when she felt hands snake around her waist from behind her, pulling her back flush against the front of—definitely a man. The slightly dizzying sensation that came with the touch confirmed the man's identity to be none other than her "fiancé." Not one to be outdone, Addison let out a throaty laugh and turned around in his arms, making sure to subtly and oh-so-lightly grind her hips against his. The almost inaudible grunt that escaped as a result caused Addison's pale eyes to shine into his almost black ones in amusement.

"Well, hello to you, too," she laughed before she leaned in and pecked him softly in greeting. "Ready to face the Wicked Witch of the East and her lovesick little munchkin?"

"The who and her what, now?" Alex asked in confusion. At this point, they had both completely forgotten they were standing inappropriately close to one another in the middle of the hospital lobby—once again breaking the rule about nausea-inducing PDA.

"Oh, God, Alex. Am I going to have to teach you _every_thing?" she demanded with an exasperated roll of her eyes. She broke their embrace and tugged him out of the hospital and toward her car. "You said her nickname was Nessa."

"Yeah, and?" Alex prompted, trying in vain to recover his arm from her vice-like grip.

"Have you never read the book or seen the play _Wicked_?"

"I'm not really one for fantasy and musicals," Alex said wryly. "In case you've forgotten, I grew up as a straight wrestler guy in Iowa."

"Okay, one day, you _are_ going to see it. It's amazing," Addison declared as she got into the driver's seat of her black Lexus.

"Of course, I will," Alex scoffed, getting in from the other side and shutting the door.

Addison ignored his sarcasm, choosing instead to start the car and back out of the parking space. "Anyway, it's the back story behind _The_ _Wizard of Oz_, and it's fabulous. The Wicked Witch of the East was the youngest daughter of the Governor of Munchkinland, Nessarose. Nessa, for short. She was in love with a Munchkin named Boq, but he only stayed with her because the woman he was in love with—Galinda, who became Glinda the Good Witch—asked him to."

Alex couldn't help but chuckle quietly to himself. "You really don't think too highly of my ex-girlfriend, do you?"

Glancing at him sideways, Addison shot him a quizzical look. "Well, after what you said she did to you and her less-than-friendly acknowledgement of me this morning, she's not really on my top five friends list."

Alex didn't say anything in response. He was too busy looking out the window to hide the smile that had suddenly bloomed on his face at her protectiveness of him. He could get used to having a protective redheaded fiancée.

When they reached the small deli just down the street and parked, Addison laughed to herself when she still saw the hospital looming. "We really could have just walked here," she commented.

Alex turned around to see what Addison saw and shared in her laughter. "Yeah, we could have," he agreed. "It's okay, though. I'm beginning to like your car a lot." He smirked at the blush that tinged his boss' cheeks, no doubt remembering that morning.

"I'm sure you are," she added wryly, walking to the front of the car and waiting for him to join her. "So you realize we're probably going to have to come up with a story of how you proposed."

"I figured it out last night," Alex answered promptly. He walked up to her and slipped his hand around her waist as they made their way into the deli. "I've got you covered."

**8D**

"Alex, over here!" Vanessa beckoned from the corner booth she and her fiancé managed to snag. Alex nodded and guided the redhead he was holding so possessively over to them, taking the time to examine the man who managed to get Vanessa to settle down. He'd expected the man to be tall, buff and have overall annoyingly good looks. He didn't expect him to look so…average. Not ugly by any means, just nothing special.

"Damn, her guy's not really much of a looker, is he?" Addison whispered, obviously thinking along the same lines as he was. Alex murmured his agreement. "Is he loaded or something?"

Alex whipped his head to her-they were still a good fifteen feet away from the waiting couple-and let out a surprised laugh. "I never thought about it that way," he admitted, mirth swimming in his chocolate irises. "He might be."

"I'll ask to see her ring," Addison decided, "then we'll _really_ know." Alex shot her a bemused look for a few seconds before she realized he was watching her. "What?"

"I'm really glad I picked you is all," he declared simply, still smiling.

Addison rolled her eyes, her lips quirking up in her own smirk. "I'll bet you appreciate the fact that I trapped you in my specialty now, don't you?"

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. "You'll never get me to admit that," he said adamantly. "_Never_."

Unfortunately, what could have turned into an epic round of teasing was cut short by their arrival at the booth. "Hey, Vanessa," Alex greeted before turning to the man next to her. "And you must be Ben." Up close, Alex could see the prevalent smattering of freckles that spanned the other man's cheeks and nose, making him look almost like he was still in the middle of puberty. "I'm Alex Karev, and this is my fiancée, Addison Montgomery."

"Nice to meet you," Addison offered graciously as she took a seat in the booth sitting opposite the freckly-faced man, who returned the greeting softly. Ben was peering at her curiously, almost as if he was trying to place her in his memory.

After a few seconds, he finally chirped up. "Excuse me, but do you happen to have a brother?"

Addison cocked her head to the right in surprised confusion. "Um, yes, actually. Archer. Why do you ask?"

Vanessa looked like she was choking. When she recollected herself, she joined the conversation. "Your brother is Archer Forbes Montgomery?"

Addison shared a puzzled look with Alex before nodding dumbly. "Have you met him?"

"Yes, actually," Ben answered in wonderment. Vanessa was still having difficulty registering that particular piece of news for some reason. "Vanessa worships him. She has all his books, and she dragged me to his book signing in Iowa about a week ago."

"Oh, yes, Archer and his famous books," Addison confirmed. "I swear those just make his already sizable head about ten times bigger."

"I asked him if he could sign one for Alex, since he was a surgical intern and everything," Vanessa continued. "He seemed to take an interest and asked where he was doing his residency, and I said Seattle Grace. He laughed and said his world-class little sister was an attending there. I never realized that was _you_."

Addison ignored the obvious disdain that laced the last word out of Vanessa's mouth and diverted her attention to Alex in a teasing smile. "You never told me you were such a big fan of my brother's, Alex. I could have gotten you signed copies of all his books ages ago."

"I'm _not_ a fan of your brother's," Alex corrected. "Besides, the men in your life have this tendency of hating me. I don't need to get multiple threats in writing on the insides of a bunch of book covers."

"So you're the world-class little sister," Ben intervened, leaning back in his seat.

"My brother never lets any guy I'm with forget it," Addison answered exasperatedly. Her heart stopped for a second when she felt Alex's hand rest midway up her thigh and start rubbing in small circles. She chanced a glance sideways to see an amused, devilish glint in his eyes. He was taking this game to a whole other level. "He chased off the ones who weren't surgeons."

"Protective older brother?" Ben laughed.

"Protective would be an understatement," Addison replied sullenly.

Ben just laughed again. "I get that," he confessed. "I'm the same way with my little sister."

"Same here with Amber," Alex admitted sheepishly. "When we were still growing up, at least."

"Traitor," Addison mumbled under her breath, making him chuckle and squeeze her thigh momentarily. Addison almost squealed when she realized his hand had made itself at home _underneath her skirt_.

The waitress came to take the group's orders. She was probably mid-twenties and not unattractive, which she probably knew since she was shooting flirty looks in Alex's direction. Vanessa got a Caesar Salad, while Ben got a rueben. Alex, who for once was oblivious to the girl's intentions, ordered a turkey sub, and Addison decided on broccoli cheddar soup.

After a few more minutes of idle chat, Vanessa finally seemed to regain control of her faculties. Propping her chin on her hand over the table, she addressed her ex-boyfriend. "So, Alex," she started. "You never told me how you proposed." Addison was having trouble focusing completely on whatever Vanessa was saying. Alex's hand was getting dangerously close to the top of her thigh. Unable to take it anymore, she gripped his forearm almost painfully hard, willing his hand to stop its trek upwards. The last thing she needed was to lose control in a public place.

Alex smirked to himself when he felt Addison's fingers digging into his arm in urgency. God, how he loved getting under her skin. Unfortunately for her, he had no plan whatsoever to stop. As he started to answer Vanessa, he allowed his fingers to gently massage the inside of her thigh where her hand held him. "Well, right before we actually got together," he began, silently appreciating the way Addison's breath started becoming shallower, "we had this conversation in the NICU. It was the first time we'd ever acknowledged that we felt something for each other." Her fingers tightened on his forearm, letting him know she _definitely_ remembered that moment.

Addison gathered herself long enough to pipe in, "And by that, he means we almost kissed right there in front of all the tiny newborns." Ben couldn't help but laugh at the way she phrased it, causing Vanessa to shoot him a look.

"Almost?" Vanessa challenged. "What happened?"

"A nurse walked in," Alex supplied.

In a surge of frustration and an intense urge to squirm, Addison sent up the white flag. "Fine," she hissed quickly. "You win, just stop _now_."

He ceased his ministrations beneath the table, but not before giving her one last triumphant squeeze. He went on as if nothing had happened. "Anyway, the day I proposed, I paged her to the NICU and then left the room. When she walked in, she would see a small black box resting on top of the same isolate we almost kissed over."

Catching on, Addison rolled her eyes. "And Alex was nowhere in sight." She slowly extracted Alex's relaxed hand out from underneath her skirt and clutched it in her lap in a death grip. Message: You do that again, and I'll castrate you.

Alex chuckled. "Well, I'm sorry for wanting to be original when I asked you to marry me," he mock apologized. Addison was too busy rolling her eyes again to notice the small grimace that came to the waitress' face as she arrived at the table with their food. Obviously, she overheard his statement.

"Anyway, go on, Alex," Vanessa urged as she dug into her Caesar salad.

Flexing his newly released hand underneath the table, he obliged. "I'd hidden just around the corner from the NICU, so I followed her after she went in and hung out in the doorframe. Once she'd opened the box and seen the ring, she looked up as if she was expecting to see me standing in front of her."

"When he spoke up from behind me, he almost sent me crashing into the isolate, which had a baby in it, for your information," Addison amended. She missed the amused smile Alex sent her way. He liked the way she was coloring the story as if she knew how it went.

"I believe my exact words were, 'I hope you don't think I'm going to kneel, otherwise I'm going to need that ring back,'" he laughed, smiling even more when he heard Addison join in (the other two laughed, too, but he only noticed hers).

"He actually reached out for it," Addison added onto the story, finding herself as engrossed in it as if it had really happened.

"You _would_, Alex," Vanessa commented in between chortles.

"Anyway, after she snatched it out of my reach and shot me a death glare, she told me she would have run, screaming away from me if I had knelt," he continued. He turned his head to look the woman next to him head on. "So once we had that cleared up, I kissed her and told her she was the most infuriating woman I'd ever met."

"Gee, thanks," she shot back half-heartedly, unable to tear her eyes away his.

"But that somehow she managed to make me love her anyway, and would she do me the honor of being my wife?" Alex's eyes were burning with an intensity that made Addison shiver.

"Obviously, I said yes," she croaked. Forcing a smile onto her face, she squeezed her eyes shut momentarily so that she could face the couple sitting across from them once again. "So what's your story?" she asked, trying to distract herself from that melting feeling that was coursing through her.

That melting feeling had made her do stupid things around Alex Karev, things like tell him he was a "decent guy," almost kiss him in a NICU, actually kiss him in a bar…accept a fake marriage proposal from him.

A sudden sense of horror temporarily tamped down that melting feeling, and Addison shot Alex, who had returned his attention to Vanessa as she told her story, a nervous, slightly terrified glance.

Was she in over her head?

**A/N: I **_**really**_** didn't intend to end it like that, but this happens to be a case of the runaway fingers who don't give a crap about what the brain wants. I hope it turned out okay and made up for my month-long hiatus. I changed the title of this chapter three times, just fyi. Not that it's actually at all relevant. Please review!**


	9. A Double Feature

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 9: A Double Feature

**A/N: So college life is turning out to be way busier than I had anticipated, which is why I've pretty much dropped off the planet for the last month. But I got Microsoft Office for Maisy! We're back in business, baby!**

Several hours later—try eight—Addison all but stormed into the hospital, finally rid of that absolute _terror_. What the hell Alex thought he saw in that vulture was far beyond Addison's comprehension, and right now she just wanted to tear into the person who brought this extremely unpleasant company into her life.

Finding him just as he dropped off a chart at the nurses' station, she barked out his last name and tugged him by the elbow into the nearest empty room—an empty supply closet.

"Um, Addison?" Alex tried to get a word in as she maneuvered him into the closet with her exceptionally strong and _painful_ grip on his arm. "What's up?"

Once she closed the door, she whipped around and leaned against it as she gazed on her supposed fiancé with firey eyes. "Do you know where I've been for the last _eight hours_?" she demanded.

Dumbly, Alex shook his head. He just remembered getting an emergency page on of Bailey's patients that he was covering during their lunch and having to duck out. Addison had been about to join him when his ex insisted she stay if she could. It really couldn't have been _that_ bad.

Apparently, Addison thought differently. "Planning our _wedding_, Karev."

Alex's jaw hit the floor. "A-Are you kidding me?" he sputtered when he regained control of his mouth.

"Do I even look remotely _close_ to kidding?" Addison shot back heatedly. "Your treat of an ex-girlfriend decided to take it upon herself to help me with the wedding details, especially after _you_ told her we hadn't even started planning yet."

"How much did she manage to wrangle you into?" was all Alex could think to say, which was a very bad idea in retrospect.

"I am _not_ someone who gets _wrangled_ into doing things, Karev," she nearly yelled. "There was no way I could protest since she doesn't know we aren't _really_ engaged!"

"Well how much damage did she do?" he rephrased, wincing from the heat in her voice.

"Once Ben left? The entire wedding." Any other time, Addison probably would have burst out laughing at the sheer look of shock that crossed Alex's face, but at the present moment, she was too pissed to notice. "June 4th, by the way. My gown will be delivered in two weeks, and you've got a fitting for your tux in a week. Oh, and dear _Vanessa_ wanted me to tell you to get working on choosing your groomsmen. I had to call Callie and Miranda already, and Naomi's booked her flight."

Alex had no idea what to say. His facial expression pretty much hadn't changed at all while she talked.

"The invitations are being sent out in a _week_, Karev," Addison pressed on, "to my _parents_. Do you see the glaring problem with this?" Still no response. "Alex, Vanessa told me she's staying in Seattle for two months to take care of her cousin for the rest of her pregnancy because she was put on bed rest for the last month and a half. Our wedding is a _week_ after the due date. Vanessa wants to _be at our wedding_, which will be happening in _a month and three weeks!_"

That finally seemed to snap Alex out of his shock. "We're getting married in seven weeks?" he asked in a stunned voice.

Addison really felt like smacking him upside the head at that moment.

"What the hell?" Alex screeched. "Where was Ben in all of this?"

"She sent Ben home, said wedding planning was just for the bride," she answered. Her pale blue eyes widened, and her brows furrowed as she leaned forward. "_I'm a bride again, and I didn't get a say in the matter!"_

"Okay, calm down, Addison," Alex jumped in, noticing how much his fiancée was working herself up into a lather. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair looked like she'd run her hand through it anxiously about thirty times. Seeing her face flood with even more blood at the suggestion to calm down, he hastily held her by each arm and made her look at him. "Working yourself in to a heart attack isn't going to help matters, so _stop it_. We'll figure out a way around this, but you need to get your mind off it for now."

"How?" Addison asked petulantly.

"How about tonight, to make it up to you, we do a movie night? We can watch whatever you want, and I'll supply the popcorn and disgusting diet sodas that you like," he suggested in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He was still kind of…majorly freaked out by his ex-girlfriend's actions.

After thinking about it for a little while, Addison relented. "Fine, but don't think you're out of trouble, Karev."

"I won't," he promised. He reached behind her and opened the door, turning her around and slowly guiding her out of the closet. "Now go home and get whatever movie you want to watch, and I'll be there in an hour."

After he'd sent the comparably docile redhead to distract herself, Alex continued finishing up at work. Too many people to count kept asking him why he looked perpetually mortified.

**8D**

Yawning, Alex pushed open the door to the swanky hotel room he now shared with his boss. "I'm home," he called out.

"Do you come bearing popcorn and drinks?" came the reply from further in the room.

"I'm not an idiot," Alex answered, kicking the door shut with his foot. "I even got you your terrible diet junk."

"I just happen to like the taste of Diet Coke, okay?" Addison sniffed.

"Sure, because that's definitely why everybody drinks Diet Coke," he snorted derisively. "So what are we watching?"

A sly smile bloomed on Addison's face as she hid something behind her back. "Welcome to your education, Dr. Karev," she announced.

"What does that mean?"

Slowly, she brought her hands out to the front. "It's a double feature—a Redgrave-Richardson night!" Alex stared at the two movies in her hands, The Parent Trap and Letters to Juliet.

"You really hate the fact that I've never heard of Vanessa Redgrave, don't you?"

"You have no idea," Addison confirmed as she popped The Parent Trap into the DVD player. "You are about to witness the magic of Natasha Richardson, and then you'll see where she got it from."

"What do you mean?" Alex couldn't have been more lost.

"Vanessa Redgrave is Natasha Richardson's mother, silly," Addison gently chided, crawling up the bed and settling in under the covers. "Now go make that popcorn and shut off the lights…and give me a soda." Alex's eyebrows raised at the list of orders, until she leveled him with a stare and a quirk of her own eyebrows. "Do you realize just how much you owe me?"

At least Alex had the decency to look abashed. "I'll be right back."

"Soda!" Addison called out hurriedly before he could leave the room, making him turn right back around and deliver a Diet Coke to her waiting hand.

**8D**

Halfway through Letters to Juliet—they already finished The Parent Trap—Addison's back rested against Alex's chest, and Alex's arms wrapped protectively around her front, hugging her to him. Neither of them had any clue as to how they got in that position, but they were enjoying it far too much to bring attention to the fact that they shouldn't really be situated like they were.

"So what do you think so far?" Addison asked, quietly so that they could still hear the movie.

"I think you're making me watch two chick flicks in a row," Alex grumped, unwilling to admit he was actually enjoying the night.

Addison twisted around against his chest so that her shoulder somewhat pushed into his torso and she could look him in the eye. "I totally earned this night, and don't forget it was _your_ idea, mister."

"I know it was my idea," he groaned in response. "But to my credit, you were kind of having a meltdown."

"Hmm, and whose fault is that?" Addison shot right back, mirth swimming in her eyes.

Alex didn't answer. He just realized how close they were to each other. His face was maybe an inch away from hers; close enough to see the flecks of green in her baby blue eyes. He was truly thankful of whatever part of his brain had blurted out Addison's name on the phone and led to this moment, because he found himself slowly closing the gap between them.

Addison knew what was coming from that soft look in her companion's chocolate eyes, having seen it twice before, once in the NICU and once in the bar. She let her eyes slide closed as the first airy brush of his lips sent shivers through her entire body. She needed more than just that small ghosting across her lips, so she stretched her neck into the kiss, letting her lips press themselves fully onto his. The response was immediate as Alex unwrapped his hands from around her and used them to turn her fully into him. Her arms slowly snaked their way up to his neck and she pushed gently so that they were soon lying down on the bed.

**A/N: It's a shortie, I know, but it's really better than nothing. And considering I'm in college now and have a ton of crap to do, I would just appreciate the fact that I'm updating at all. And I'm sure you guys appreciated that last part, but you need to tell me if I'm right. You know how? REVIEW!**


	10. Get Happy

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 10: Get Happy

**A/N: I'm so sorry for taking so long! Once again, it's not taking nearly as long as it's taking my other fics, some of which haven't been updated for the better part of eight months. That's kinda crappy, and I need to update those, too, but **_**time**_** is a fickle thing, my friends. Enjoy this update!**

Spots danced across Addison's vision in a flurry as she tried to calm herself down, her chest rising and falling with each pant of breath underneath a thin hotel bed sheet. "That…" she began to say, only to retreat back into silence when her lungs complained. "That…" she tried again.

"Yeah…" Alex replied, obviously having the same difficulty with his own lungs.

Addison rolled over onto her side and idly traced the tattoo on his bicep, still struggling to find the words to describe what the hell just went on between them. "So…what…now?"

Alex let his head roll to look at the mussed up redhead laying next to him. He seemed to have caught his breath, because before she knew it, he had launched into a speech he had obviously been contemplating for some time. "You should know by now that I actually do like you, that I actually _do_ want you, no matter what I said in that supply closet. I didn't just sleep with you to make this entire situation easier on both of us."

"I wouldn't have thought that," Addison protested, still keeping her eyes trained on the tattoo.

Alex shook his head. "Yes, you would have, and that's okay. You know me, and you know that's something I would do. And I know you, and I know that's something you would think. Don't doubt yourself or what happened tonight, because I like you _and_ what happened tonight." His face broke out into a smirk. "And I plan to _repeat_ tonight again, and again, and again." Addison's cheeks flushed furiously at his last words, eliciting a chuckle from him that made shivers go down her spine even as she finally locked eyes with him indignantly.

"Don't laugh," she mock-ordered. "It's rude to laugh at the woman you just slept with."

Unfortunately, that just made him laugh harder.

**8D**

Addison and Alex walked into the hospital the next morning smiling more than usual. His hand rested on the small of her back, just as it had been the day before, only this time, Addison welcomed the strange tingles that radiated from his fingertips. When they reached the coffee cart, Alex paid for both their vanilla lattes before they headed to the elevators.

"So I'll see you after rounds?" Alex asked her once they were inside the cabin alone.

"Don't you always?" Addison shot back, before she found herself plastered against the elevator wall with Alex's lips hungrily devouring hers. When the bell signaling they had reached their floor rang, Alex reluctantly let his fiancée breathe.

"See you later," he waved, leaving the cabin and a very flustered redhead behind.

Just as the cabin door is about to slide completely shut, a tan hand caught it, making the doors reopen to reveal a very curious Callie Torres.

"Morning, Callie," Addison greeted breathlessly, blinking wide eyes.

"Good morning," the ortho resident replied slowly as she joined Addison in the elevator. "So what was that?"

"What was what?" Addison asked, finally gathering all her wits about her enough to press the button for the floor she needed, something she had forgotten to do once Alex's lips were on hers.

"You and Karev," Callie provided bluntly.

"You mean aside from the fact that I'm engaged to him?" the redhead responded dryly.

"Yeah, and the fact that you have yet to give me the details on how that even happened," Callie pointed out, noticing the way her friend stiffened. "How did you go from avoiding Karev over a kiss to being _engaged_ to him and making out on cars and in elevators?"

"It's a long story," Addison began uncomfortably. "A very long, complicated story."

"Just give me the Reader's Digest version," Callie shrugged. "I'm just confused. I mean, I'm over the moon for you, and I'm glad you finally admitted that you wanted him, but it just seems really fast."

"It actually wasn't as fast as it looks," Addison protested earnestly, making things up as quickly as possible. "You know me. I like to stay professional, so we kept it _really_ quiet until he proposed."

"Okay, but then why did you get engaged so quickly?"

"He…" Addison hesitated. "He makes me feel better about myself. He's made me feel better than I have in years, since before Derek stopped caring enough to pay attention to me." She shrugged. "I know enough to know that doesn't come around often, so when he proposed…I accepted."

The elevator stopped moving, and the doors slid open. Addison slowly made her way out of the elevator cabin before she waited for Callie to join her. When she did, Callie had a warm smile on her face. "Then I'm even happier for you," she announced, pulling her engaged friend into a hug.

"Thank you," Addison sighed into the embrace.

"So, now that that's settled, I have some news," Callie declared excitedly as she pulled back.

"Really? What?" Instead of an answer, Callie casually tucked her hair behind her left ear, and just when Addison was about to sigh and try to wrangle an answer out of her best friend, a glint off her hand caught Addison's attention. Faster than either woman could blink, Addison had Callie's left hand in both of hers. "What is _this_?"

"George and I got married," Callie squealed.

Addison blinked for a few seconds. "And you were worried about _me_ going so fast? Not that I'm not happy for you."

"You know what happens when you're with a guy, and you feel better about yourself than you have in years?" Callie couldn't wipe the gleeful smile from her face.

"So this is why I didn't see you at all yesterday?" Addison asked, barely even waiting for the confirming nod. "A romantic elopement followed by all day in bed?" Another confirming nod. "That sounds fabulous. I'm so happy for you." Another hug followed her words, with a genuine smile gracing her lips.

When they broke the hug, Callie laughed. "Look at us, all grown up," she teased.

"Marrying our twelve-year-old interns," Addison amended with a smile, earning another round of giggles from the ortho resident. "We are just _so_ cool."

Callie shrugged and waved it off. "Eh, being cool's for losers."

**A/N: Sorry it's such a shortie, but I already updated another fic today, and I passed my 1,000-word mark. I hope it's still enough to garner some REVIEWS!**


	11. What the Hell?

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 11: What the Hell?

**A/N: I'm going to stop apologizing for taking two months to update this, because it's getting redundant. Just assume that I'm sorry whenever it takes me more than a couple of weeks to update this. Because chances are, I am. Happy New Year!**

**A/N 2: One of my resolutions: become a more consistent updater. We'll see how that turns out.**

"Karev, get your ass out here!" Addison commanded at the closed door of the fitting room in the back of Finesse Formalwear.

"Isn't it bad luck for you to see me dressed like this before the wedding?" came the strangled reply, eliciting an exhausted eye-roll from the redhead standing outside the fitting room and tapping a stiletto-ed foot impatiently.

"I'm pretty sure that's for the bride in her _wedding dress_," Addison corrected, a devilish smile unfolding on her face. "Are you trying to tell me something, Karev?"

"Very funny, Addison," Alex deadpanned. He waited a few seconds for his girlfriend-slash-fiancée before finally turning the knob. "Alright, I'm coming out. Don't laugh."

Addison looked up from inspecting her cuticles to find her intern's words to be completely unfounded. By Alex's reluctance to come out, she'd half-expected the pants to be too small and the waistcoat too large. Instead, the tuxedo fit almost perfectly, and it created quite an effect on the normally jean-clad surgeon. It was enough to make Addison's jaw drop, which it did—a little. "The only thing I could possibly laugh about," she said once she recovered from her surprise, "is how uncomfortable you look in that tux."

Tugging irritably at the collar, Alex fixed Addison with a stare. "I don't really rock the tuxes that often."

"I wouldn't want to be near you if you did," she shot back. "A tux wouldn't go over all that well in surgery."

Alex couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled out at her offhanded comment. "But seriously, how do I look?"

After circling around him to make sure everything fit well enough, she declared, "I'd marry you."

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. "So where's the tailor? Doesn't he need to be here to fit me?"

"He's just finishing up George's tux, since George didn't take half an hour to make it out of the fitting room."

Growling, Alex let that comment slide when another, much less amusing topic came to mind. "So did you manage to get a hold of your parents?"

A grimace flashed across Addison's face. "I called a few times, but they're stubbornly out of reach," she responded. "The Captain's not even in Connecticut. He's at some conference, but he's not picking up his cell phone. And I left a message with Susan to give to my mom to call me a couple days ago. She never called back."

"When are their invitations supposed to get there?" he asked in an increasingly concerned tone.

"Tomorrow at the latest," Addison provided. Heaving a tired sigh, she moved to stand in front of Alex and pretended to adjust his waistcoat. "I just feel like it's all getting so out of hand," she confessed. "Already, so many people are involved, and my parents are officially going to join the equation. In a month and a half, we're going to be _married_, Karev."

Alex brought his hands up to her arms, rubbing them in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "I know," he murmured.

"We've only been really together for a week," she whispered, struggling to keep her features calm. "And I can't see any way out of this without thoroughly embarrassing the both of us, and this has become an extremely extravagant and expensive lie, and all for another girl—"

"Addison, I need you to calm down," Alex interrupted in a low voice. Her voice had gradually gained volume as her hysteria increased, and pretty soon she would have blurted their secret to the entire formalwear store, which currently included a few people they knew. "I know this has gone farther than either of us expected. I thought Vanessa was only going to be in Seattle for a week or so, and then I could have been the ass who cheated on you and the lie would be over. But that's not how it happened, and I got you into this mess. I promise I'll do everything I can to make sure you get out of it as cleanly as possible."

He had no idea _how_ he was going to do that, but the words seemed to soothe Addison well enough. She loosened her white-knuckled grip on his lapels and leaned forward so that their foreheads touched. "Thank you."

Wrapping his arms around her body in an embrace, Alex kissed her forehead and breathed in the scent of her shampoo. "I'll take care of it. I promise."

He still didn't know how, though.

**8D**

Back at work, Addison watched with a heavy heart as Derek once again averted his eyes as he passed her in the hallway. Stopping short, she closed her eyes in frustration and sent up a silent prayer for patience and understanding before turning around and heading back the way she had come. She picked up her pace until she caught up with her ex-husband.

"Derek," she began, a note of pleading entering her voice, "I need to talk to you."

"About what, Addison?" he answered stiffly, keeping his gaze extending directly in front of him and never looking to the side.

Addison grit her teeth and breathed forcefully through her nose. She spied an empty, open on-call room to her right, and before she'd had a chance to consider anything else, she dragged Derek into it by his elbow.

"What are you doing?" he demanded indignantly once the door was closed.

Addison turned around from locking the door and placed her fists on her hips. "Well, you've been avoiding me for the past week and a half, and apparently, blocking the exit is the only way I can get you to talk to me."

"What do you want to talk about, Addison?" Derek almost yelled. Addison couldn't help the slight urge to recoil from his anger and backed further into the door. "About that invitation I got in the mail last night? About how you're getting married again less than a year after we divorced? How _I _am somehow the bad guy in all of this?"

"There _is_ no good or bad guy in all of this!" Addison retorted. "Things have been morally gray since we moved to Seattle. Ask anyone, and I'll bet you the nurses have some sort of Team Addison and Team Derek poll going on."

"What's your point?"

"My point is," Addison took a step forward, "that if we keep thinking of terms of who was wrong to do this and right to do that, how the hell are we ever going to be able to move on from our marriage?"

Derek didn't have an answer for that.

"I want to be able to be friends with my ex-husband," she continued, "as good of friends as we were before we got married. We used to tell each other everything, Derek. We'd be happy for each other when one of us got asked out by someone we liked or when we got the top grades in Anatomy. If we were as close now as we were then, we'd both be laughing at the fact that we're in serious relationships with people several years younger than us."

Derek still didn't say anything. He stared blankly at her, almost as if he was unwilling to admit the weight behind her words.

"Can't we be those people again?" Addison asked hopefully. She knew him better than anyone else. She knew he was on the cusp of agreeing; it was just his stupid stubbornness that was getting in the way now.

Finally, after about a minute of stony silence, Derek's eyes softened, swimming with nostalgia. "I don't know if we can, Addie—" she felt her heart sink at his words—"but I can try."

A small smile snuck its way onto her face. "Really?"

He returned her smile with his own. "Team Derek and Team Addison will be things of the past by next week."

"We'll be Team Dad again?" Laughter officially took over as Derek nodded and brought his ex-wife in for a bear hug.

"Team Dad's back."

**8D**

Busy Forbes Montgomery shuffled through the leaves of paper that Susan had deemed important enough to need her personal attention, meaning no bills, solicitations or alumni society periodicals. Foremost on the pile was a post-it from Susan, saying that Addison had once again called and asked to speak to her. It was so unlike her daughter to be so persistent in getting in touch with anyone in her family, but she would just have to wait. Archer's "extended vacation" in Las Vegas had made a mess of some of the family accounts. Honestly, Addison's older brother took far too much after his father.

The sound of something falling off her desk and hitting the ground echoed throughout the otherwise empty office. Busy looked down to see what appeared to be a card near her feat. Cleanliness more than curiosity drove her to retrieve it from the floor, but the sight of her daughter's name in flowing script all but glued that card—invitation—to her fingers.

_Drs. Alex Karev and _

_Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery_

_would like to cordially invite you to celebrate_

_their union in marriage._

_June 4, 2010_

_6 o'clock at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel Seattle_

_Reception to follow_

_Please R.S.V.P. by May 20_

Addison was getting married. Eight months after her marriage to Derek Shepherd dissolved. And she didn't tell her. Busy's eyes darted to the yellow post-it note resting innocently on her desk. Suddenly, her daughter's persistence made so much more sense.

**8D**

Addison looked through the window of the NICU curiously. No one was in there, and all the babies seemed to be doing okay. She walked through the doorway and saw the same things. Who had paged her to the NICU? And _why_?

Her eyes fell on a small black box resting atop the isolate directly in front of the door. She didn't notice her broad, soft smile as she walked up to the isolate and opened the box to find—nothing.

"You're kind of already _wearing_ the ring, sorry," came Alex's voice from behind her. Addison turned around to see him leaning on the doorframe with his hands in the pockets of his white coat.

Unable to keep the traces of laughter from her voice, Addison held up the box. "What is this?"

"You're still the most infuriating woman I've ever met," Alex replied simply.

"Gee thanks," she shot back dryly.

"But I'm pretty sure I actually managed to fall in love with you ever since that newborn was found in the trash at that high school," he continued as if she hadn't even spoken.

She wasn't saying anything now. In fact, her eyes were so wide, pretty soon her contacts were going to pop right out.

"I was going over how to get out of this big game of pretend in my head," Alex announced, "and I couldn't think of any good ideas because all of them involved me hurting you in some way. And I decided I _really_ didn't want to do that."

"So your solution was to give me an empty ring box?" Addison stammered.

Alex laughed. "No, my solution was to ask you to marry me for real."

Addison's eyes grew even wider. She dropped the box on the ground.

"I know it's fast, and it's really nothing like you've ever done or considered doing," he said. "But you tried doing it by the book, and it didn't work out so well. I also realize we've only been official for about a week, but you _know_ this has been going on almost since your divorce."

Addison still showed no indication of possessing any ability to speak.

"And this way, we wouldn't feel guilty about getting fake-married and lying to all our friends and family, because it wouldn't be a lie anymore," Alex concluded. After a few beats of silence—stunned, on her part—he said one last thing: "I'm still not going to kneel."

Somehow, those seemed to be the magic words to snap the redhead out of her trance. He was right. She _had_ done marriage the "right" way, and it blew up in her face. And what she told Callie was true, too. He _did_ make her feel better than she had in years. _And_ she was just so damn sick of always doing the good, sensible thing. _Sensible can go screw itself. What the hell?_ "I'd still run away from you screaming if you knelt," she finally answered in a shaky voice.

"So is that a yes?"

Addison took one last deep breath.

"Yes."

**A/N: I'll bet you guys **_**totally**_** thought that I would use the proposal to end the story! Well, to be fair, I had thought that, too, until about three hours ago. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quite substantial chapter. REVIEW!**


	12. A Toast

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 12: A Toast

**A/N: This is important, so please read: I received a rather unsavory review for my last chapter, ninety percent of which focused on and belittled me for my spelling of Addison's mother's name. I direct that person to read Gorgeous, in which I spell her name correctly. I know how to spell her name. I realize the correct spelling is "Bizzy," but I, for one, find that spelling to be rather hideous. I preferred to model the spelling after that of the actress, Busy Phillips. I do not appreciate condescension and implications that I'm stupid over something as minor as the spelling of a name. I don't mind constructive criticism, but there was nothing constructive about this. Please, if you wish to correct my spelling, do not do so in such a distasteful manner. I really don't appreciate it.**

**A/N 2: Sorry for the killjoy Author's Note, but that needed to be addressed. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the **_**one**_** chapter I actually **_**outlined**_** before writing! Don't forget that Callie and Mark didn't really become best friends until season 4.**

The Captain walked into his office almost immediately upon his return to his home in Connecticut. On his desk rested a sizeable pile of tests, which needed grading from his class in the Yale School of Medicine. Sighing, he shrugged out of his heavy coat and draped it over the back of one of the straight-backed chairs sitting opposite his mahogany desk. Almost as soon as he'd settled himself in his leather swivel chair behind the desk, a knock at his door sounded.

"Come in," he beckoned, removing the first test from the pile and retrieving a red pen.

The door opened to reveal his wife, Busy. "How was your trip?" she asked quietly as she walked further in the room to stand behind the chair with his coat on it.

"It was fine," he answered. "Nothing really extraordinary took place. I talked; they pretended to listen."

"I'm glad." Silence followed as Busy entertained herself with the buttons of his coat.

The Captain looked up at his wife, noticing the tightness around her lips. His eyes looked lower at her hands. She never fiddled with things. "Busy?"

She continued playing with the buttons for a few seconds more. "When was the last time you spoke to Addison?"

A puzzled look settled on the Captain's face. "I don't know," he responded, "maybe a few months ago? She never really relishes talking with me, Busy. You know that."

"Why did you allow such a rift to open between you two?" Busy's tone was suddenly very sharp. "You two used to be quite close."

"When she was six," he clarified.

"So what changed?"

The Captain hesitated. What changed was that Addison matured enough to become aware of his numerous instances of infidelity to his wife and resentful towards him for making her lie on his behalf. But he couldn't tell Busy that, no matter how alike they were on that regard. It was an unspoken promise between the two of them. "She…disapproved of my less endearing qualities."

"You never made any effort to reconcile with her," Busy accused. "You just let her drift away."

"What's this about?" The Captain was not one to take such accusations lightly, especially coming from the woman who committed the exact same acts as he. He returned his attention to the paper in front of him and was about to mark on the test when—

"Our daughter is getting married again," she declared. The Captain's head whipped up, his expression changed from one of irritation to one of sheer shock. "Our daughter is getting remarried, and I found out when I received the wedding invitation for six weeks from now. Next time you leave town, don't be too busy to answer your cell phone. We're going to Seattle on the first of June."

With those last words, Busy turned around where she stood and walked out of the office, leaving a bewildered Captain in her wake, red pen suspended in the air.

**8D**

"Joe!" Alex bellowed as he and Addison made their way to the bar. "Beer for me and a vodka martini for my fiancée, please!" Addison beamed at the man walking alongside her. It was so nice to hear him call her that without any implication of the word "fake" in there.

Joe eyed the pair curiously before obliging, setting a beer bottle on a napkin on the counter and beginning to mix the martini. "Any occasion?"

Addison took a seat at the bar and sent the blue-eyed bartender a dazzling smile. "You know how people sometimes renew their wedding vows?" Joe nodded. "Well, we just did the _engagement_ version of that."

"Deserves a toast, don't you think?" Alex added as he joined the redhead.

"Wait, so you just renewed your engagement?" Joe asked, placing the finished martini in front of Addison. The pair nodded in excitement. "I don't get it. How do you do that?"

"He proposed to me again," Addison announced, "to get me to stop stressing about all the wedding planning."

"You two are strange," Joe commented as he beheld the sheer elation in the two surgeons' eyes. "But I'm happy for you two. First round's on the house."

"You're golden, Joe," Addison declared, shooting him yet another delighted smile. Her eyes fell on her fiancé—that made her smile widen even more. She _loved_ that she no longer had to remind herself that they weren't _really_ engaged. That ring on her finger now completely and utterly belonged there. "So, what should we toast to?"

Alex pretended to think for a few seconds, putting on a thoughtful face as he held his beer bottle in the air. "How about to no longer being blind idiots?"

Addison couldn't help but laugh at the truth behind his words. "How about to the no-longer-fake us?"

"I like that. To the no-longer-fake us!" Alex raised his beer and clinked it with the glass of her martini before they both took lengthy swigs from their drinks.

Three hours later found Addison and Alex in those same stools, Alex fumbling with his wallet and Addison hurriedly gathering her things. Giggles overcame the redhead as she decided—again—to drop everything and give him a very wet, _very_ passionate kiss.

"Addie," Alex groaned against her lips. "I really have to pay if you want to continue this at home."

Addison heaved a dramatic sigh and once again began to gather her belongings. "Fine."

Five minutes later, Addison was all but tugging him out of the bar, passing a disgruntled Mark Sloan nursing a scotch neat. The bell on the door jingled as it was opened from the outside. Callie began to enter the establishment when the inebriated couple almost ran into her in their eagerness to get back to the hotel. The orthopedic surgeon finally made it inside just in time to watch Mark throw back the rest of his drink with a vengeance.

"You look happy," she said dryly, approaching the table.

"Not now, Torres," Mark growled. "Or should I call you O'Malley now?"

"Callie would work, too, Mark," she answered. "What's with you?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Callie stared at the grumpy plastic surgeon before walking off. Mark heaved a small sigh of relief when she did, but it was too soon. Within five minutes, he heard the familiar thump of glass being set on wood and looked up to see the raven-haired surgeon settling herself in the seat next to him. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"You're moping." Callie pushed a fresh glass toward him. Mark looked down. Scotch neat. "Joe told me what your drink was," she explained, taking a sip of her mohito.

"That's still not answering me question," he grumbled as he reached gratefully for the scotch. "That was what _I'm_ doing."

"Look, I don't know you that well, but this isn't you," Callie indicated, gesturing to his hunched form. "You're annoyingly confident usually, and the second you see Addison walk by, you wallow in self-pity."

"Hey, who said anything about Ad—" he began indignantly, only to be cut off by a pointed look from Callie.

"It's Addison. The whole hospital knows it's Addison, so stop saying it isn't."

Mark hunched over even more in agitation. "What the hell are you doing here, Callie?"

Callie took another sip of her drink. "Cheering you up."

He rolled his eyes. "You're married, Callie. I'm not going there again," he said.

Lowering her drink, Callie fixed a glare on the glum surgeon. "Not _that_ kind of cheering, you manwhore," she hissed. "As surprising as it seems, there _are_ other forms of support than sympathy sex."

"None that I'm interested in," Mark grumbled.

"Would you just grow up for like fifteen minutes?" Callie asked in exasperation, finally earning a stunned stare from the man. "You really need to stop pining over Addison. Didn't you, her and Derek all use to be best friends?"

"Yeah, so?"

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. "The longer you torment yourself and her with your mooning over her, the harder it'll be to get your two best friends back."

Mark shot her a scathing look. "Sorry, but my feelings for her don't really have an on/off switch."

"Well, you're just going to have to try," Callie continued in a strong, firm voice. "Addison misses being able to come to you without worrying that you'll try to win her back. She's getting _married_ again, Mark. Accept it and move on. You don't want to help her break another marriage, do you?" Grudgingly, he shook his head. "And you want her to be happy, don't you?" Even more reluctantly, he nodded. "If Alex is who makes her happy, wouldn't you be better off letting her go and going back to being one of her best friends?"

Mark thought about her question for a time with his jaw clenched. He knew what his answer should be, what it was going to be. But that didn't mean he appreciated having to say it. He _didn't_ want to let her go. But he missed her. Callie's words made sense. The more he chased Addison, the farther she seemed to drift away. "You suck, Callie O'Malley." Callie merely smiled around her straw.

**8D**

The sunlight filtered through the tangled locks of red hair hanging in front of Addison's face. As her eyes fluttered open, a headache the size of the Space Needle began drilling away at her brain. A groan escaped her lips as she struggled to push herself off the bed. For some reason, it was much harder than usual to carry out such a simple task.

Once her feet were finally free, she plodded to the window and gleefully yanked the blinds shut, enveloping the hotel room in welcome darkness. She made her way to the bathroom carefully in the dark. The disgusting film that coated her teeth needed to be brushed off as quickly as possible, and then she _really_ needed to find her bottle of aspirin.

Her hand searched the bathroom wall for the light switch, finally finding it after a few minutes of randomly sliding along the wallpaper. As light flooded the bathroom, Addison squeezed her eyes shut with another groan. She stood like that for some time after blindly finding her toothbrush and holding it, wishing for the headache to recede to no avail. Slowly, she opened one eye and then the other. The sight that greeted her made them continue to open until they were as wide as they could go.

She saw her reflection in the mirror. Naked. And with various hickeys scattered across her body. The sound of a gentle snore coming from the bedroom had her looking out of the bathroom in that direction.

Right. She'd slept with Alex. That was okay. They were engaged. For real.

Her eyes fell to the floor. Random articles of clothing littered the floor, starting from the door to the hotel room and meandering in a definite trail toward the bed. Tentative steps back into the bedroom and searching eyes revealed one distinct absence.

There was not a condom wrapper in sight. Addison's eyes went even wider in realization.

They hadn't used protection.

**A/N: Yes, yes, I am evil. For the first time in I don't know how long, my fingers actually **_**followed**_** my outline! And aren't you proud of me for updating within two weeks? I'm quite proud of me. Anyway, I think you should REVIEW!**


	13. The Morning After

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 13: The Morning After

**A/N: Please don't hurt me! I know it's been like two months since I've updated, but it's just been absolutely crazy. I haven't had enough energy to do anything more than read whenever I had any free time, because college midterm month (otherwise referred to as March) sucks **_**balls**_**. Sheer guilt made me write this, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!**

Addison walked into the hospital feeling miserable. Her head was pounding, and she was too paranoid to drink coffee yet. All she could focus on as she ascended the stairs in the lobby was that she and Alex hadn't used protection. There had been no impediments stopping her intern's best swimmers from making themselves cozy in her eggs.

She didn't even get to unload her fears on Alex because he was probably still passed out in their bed at the Archfield. At another particularly painful throb of her head, Addison silently cursed her fiancé. Why did today, of all days, have to be his off day?

Not that she was entirely sure she was going to tell Alex before there was really anything to tell. She didn't know she was pregnant yet; they could have gotten lucky. Sure, she wanted a baby, but she would much rather that happen after she got married. With how fast everything was going with their engagement, people would think it was a shotgun wedding. And she really didn't want that.

"Aspirin?" a warm, deep, husky voice offered.

Addison blinked. She was already in the attending's locker room, but she had zoned out the entire way there. Another thing finally penetrated her hangover-riddled brain, and that was Mark Sloan standing before her holding out a water bottle and a bottle of aspirin.

"Um, yes, thank you," she accepted and took two pills and a large gulp of water. "I seem to have lost my bottle."

"If I remember correctly," Mark supplied, "you used up the last of your store the morning after you slept with me once you and Derek split."

"Oh, right." The pair stood in awkward silence for a few moments. "So you're talking to me again?"

Mark shrugged. "I can't avoid you forever."

"How sweet," she deadpanned.

"_But_, if I stop avoiding you now, there's still a chance you'll let me be your best friend again."

A spark of hope came to life in Addison's heavy-lidded blue eyes. "You want to be friends again?"

He shrugged again, scratching the back of his head. "I'd like to be, you know, if you'll take me back."

"Are you kidding? Of course I will," the redhead confirmed in earnest, tackling him with the biggest hug she could manage. "I've missed having you as my best friend," she whispered over his shoulder.

"Don't see why. You seemed to have racked up a lot of them lately," Mark mumbled.

Addison pulled back and placed her hands on her hips, the water bottle crinkling as it was squeezed slightly. "Hey, when I came here, everyone hated me because of what we did to Derek," she reminded him. "I earned their friendships through sheer stubbornness."

"And your friendship with Torres had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you both used me as your sex toy," the manwhore retorted dryly.

"Well I'd like to think my fabulous flair and wit helped with that, too," Addison smiled and flipped her hair over her shoulder, her headache pushed to the back of her mind. At the sound of Mark's deep laugh, her smile widened. They were going to be just fine.

* * *

"Honey, I'm home!" Addison announced cheerfully as she stepped into her plush Archfield hotel room.

"What the hell?" Alex asked, bewildered, on his way out of the steam-filled bathroom in nothing but a towel, conveniently reminding her of the time Derek saw Mark do the very same thing after he slept with Meredith. Addison smiled wryly. That incident had come up a lot today.

Addison couldn't help but giggle. "I've always wanted to say that, but Derek always came home after me on days we didn't leave together."

"You have a thing for I Love Lucy?" Alex quirked an eyebrow.

"It's comedy at its finest," Addison maintained.

"You have strange passions," he declared.

She rolled her eyes. "You lived under a rock for the majority of your life," she excused. "I'm here now to educate you."

A smirk bloomed on Alex's face as he pulled Addison in by her waist so that her face was a hair's breadth away from his. "In that case, I think you should teach me a thing or two."

Their lips met in a fiery kiss, one that left both breathless when they finally parted. Addison's eyes fluttered open. "I'd be happy to enlighten you," she whispered, tugging on the fluffy white towel hanging on his hips.

* * *

Later, Addison lay curled into Alex's side with her head resting on his chest while he stroked her back lazily. She traced small circles in his chest hair. "I talked to Mark today," she announced.

"How is this guy who decked me, by the way?" Alex asked dryly.

"Speaking of which, your scar is healing quite nicely. It'll barely be noticeable by the wedding."

"Yeah, I had this really awesome, incredibly sexy doctor stitch me up," he smirked.

"She sounds swell. You should propose to her."

Alex shrugged. "We'll see. God knows I never do things the way I _should_ do them. I will in time." A laugh answered him. "So you were saying?"

"He wants to be friends again," she said, a smile coming onto her face. "He's finally accepting us."

"Well, as long as he doesn't try to pound me again, I'm happy you got your two best friends back," he declared.

"Look at you, being all magnanimous," Addison teased. "Keep it up, and I just may stort to think you're growing up."

Alex snorted. "That'll never happen."

"Not even if you were going to have a kid?" she asked softly, becoming infinitely more fascinated with the patterns she was drawing on his chest.

Alex didn't seem to pick up on the emphasized curiosity in her voice and answered casually. "I'd be the best dad possible for me to be," he said firmly. "There's no way I'm letting my kid have my childhood."

"Not sure I'd want them to have mine, either," Addison mumbled. Inside, she was glowing. He sounded so committed to being a good father, and kids weren't even in the picture for him yet. "I didn't know you were so invested in the whole children thing. Most guys your age aren't."

"I mean, I'm not in a hurry or anything," he insisted, "but I've thought about it a lot more since you put me on your service."

"Really?"

"Would _you_ ever toss your newborn child into a trash can?"

"Good point," Addison ceded. "I guess I took the whole wanting children thing for granted as being a woman. I don't think I ever realized how much I think about being a parent when I'm at work."

Alex turned his head to look at his fiancée. "Besides, you and I are getting married in a month and a half. That was the scarier thing to me, but I proposed to you, didn't I?"

Addison rolled her eyes. "Yeah, too bad we didn't actually date before that happened."

"I already said I'm bad at doing things the way I should do them," Alex muttered.

**A/N: Shortie, I know, but I don't want to do a time jump in the middle of a chapter. Anyway, please don't hate me for taking so long to update and REVIEW!**


	14. Misery Business

**Forever**

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.**

Chapter 14: Misery Business

**A/N: So hey, I'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth again. But you'll be glad you waited for this chapter. A lot happens in it so I hope you enjoy it!**

Addison couldn't sit still for the life of her. All she could focus on was the second's hand on her Michael Kors watch, ticking far too slowly for her liking. Two minutes left.

Two minutes left to decide whether or not she wanted the test to turn out positive. If she was painfully honest with herself, she knew she probably didn't have very much time left to have a child. Her biological clock was ticking away, much like the hand on her watch, which now indicated that there was but one minute left.

Addison tried to still her legs from swinging as they had been since she sat on the bathroom counter nine minutes ago. Did she want this test to be positive simply because it could be her last chance at having a baby of her own? She and Alex were still incredibly new, and the added pressure of a baby would very possibly drive a wedge between them. And, since they were getting married in a month, breaking up after tying the knot could prove problematic. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she didn't want people to think they got married because he got her pregnant.

The second's hand reached the 12 on the face of her watch. It was time. With a deep breath, she flipped the paper towel covering the pregnancy test into the trash can.

A minus sign looked up at her from the stick on the counter.

Well, that was that. She wasn't pregnant. Relief washed through her body, just before a wave of despair crashed over her head. Sure, things were _much_ simpler this way, but that didn't stop the disappointment from welling up inside her, hoping against hope that she was still able to even have children.

But at least she knew for now. She could focus on the wedding again—and seeing her parents.

* * *

Addison called in sick to work that day, not feeling up to delivering other women's babies when she found out she wasn't going to have one. It would have made her act weird, and then Alex would ask her what was wrong. She'd have to tell him the truth because he could tell if she was lying with his eyes closed. Nope. Avoidance was the answer.

She had just crawled back into bed in the afternoon when a cell phone rang. Groaning, she rifled around the nightstand for the offending device. It wasn't until after she had the phone in her hand and was looking at Vanessa's name on the caller ID that she realized the ringtone had not been her own, rather Alex's. Frustration laced her voice when she answered, "Hello?"

"Addison?"

"Hey, Vanessa," she yawned. "What can I do for you?"

"Isn't this Alex's phone?"

"Yes, but he seems to have forgotten it at home," Addison explained. "What's up?"

"Oh, well, this is perfect," Vanessa chirped. "I was calling to get your number anyway."

Addison rolled her eyes. "What for?"

"I want to have lunch tomorrow," Vanessa declared. "Just to see how the wedding planning is going."

"Going?" Addison repeated. "Vanessa, it already _went_. You helped me plan it last month, and all that was left to do was make sure everything fit."

"Oh, please, you've been married before. You know how this works," Vanessa chided, making Addison's brow furrow at the subtle insult. "We need to go through the RSVPs and make the seating chart."

"Why is it so important that you be my unofficial wedding planner?" the redhead asked tiredly as she sat up.

Vanessa paused. Addison almost repeated her question when she heard, "Honestly? You're the farthest from Alex's type I can imagine, and I'm trying to see why he wants to marry you." Dead, shocked silence answered her. "That came out wrong."

Addison snapped her agape mouth shut. "No, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what you meant to say," she corrected harshly. "Yes, I am far from Alex's type, but his type before me consisted mostly of easy lays. Hardly the type you'd want to keep around."

An offended noise came through the phone; Vanessa _was_ one of Alex's exes, after all. "Excuse me?"

"I appreciate all the help you've given me planning the wedding, but I think we can handle the seating chart on our own. Besides, you have your own wedding to focus on. Goodbye, Vanessa." And with that, Addison flipped the cell phone closed and fell back on the bed. As she glared up at the ceiling, she thought of at least one good result of that phone call: she was no longer depressed over the negative pregnancy test. Now she was just pissed.

* * *

"Addison, will you please tell me why you're so angry?" Alex asked wearily. He'd come back from work half an hour ago to his fiancée practically spitting nails. "Nothing you're saying is making any sense right now."

A growl emanated from the pacing redhead's throat. "Every time I talk to Vanessa, I like her less and less," she ranted.

Alex groaned. "Oh, no, what did she do?" He didn't have a good feeling about this.

"You used to have horrid taste in women, Alex Karev," Addison announced heatedly.

"Thanks for letting me know," he deadpanned. "Now what did Vanessa do?"

"You left your cell phone here, and she called looking for me."

"I'm guessing she found you," Alex said with a measure of dread in his voice.

She nodded and continued with her recap. "I finally asked her what her fascination with being our wedding planner was, and she said she was trying to figure out why you're marrying me," she all but shouted that last part at Alex, whose chocolate brown eyes went as wide as saucers.

"She didn't." Anger boiled within the surgical intern. How _dare_ Vanessa say that?

"She's such a _peach_," she said sardonically. "I don't know why you let her get away."

"What did you say to her?"

A small blush rose to Addison's cheeks. "I _may_ have insinuated that she was an easy lay, and that you want to keep me around because I'm not like that."

Alex, who had been taking a sip of water while she spoke, choked on his drink at her words. "You said _what_?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Hey, she started the offensive comments," she huffed.

Laughter bubbled out of her fiancé; he literally had to sit on the bed to avoid falling over in his mirth. "I...can't...believe...you called her..._loose_!" he exclaimed between breaths. "That's excellent!"

"Well, it's true, from what you've told me," Addison defended, crossing her arms. Alex just kept laughing, and Addison felt the corners of her lips quirk upwards. Within another minute she was giggling along with him. So much for her bad mood.

* * *

The next morning, Addison stood in one of Seattle Grace's elevators reading the newspaper when Richard stepped into the cabin. After a short hello, he turned around and pressed the button for his floor. Addison did a double take at the back of her boss' head-his hair was black.

Startled though she was, she chose to stay silent. She couldn't say the same for Mark, Derek and Burke, all of whom stepped onto the elevator shortly after the Chief. They all offered their own shocked (and amused) greetings, prompting Addison to cough out a "Leave him be," warning.

Obviously, they ignored her.

Question after question from the three men all but forced the Chief to admit he had dyed his hair in order to attract women's attention. When Mark started laughing, Addison had had enough. Soon, she was whacking all three attendings with her newspaper.

"He is alone," she hissed haltingly. "All alone. Do any of you know what that's like?" She gestured at each of them in exasperation. "Lives with Christina, dates the perfect 12-year-old, _manwhore_!" One by one, the men recoiled as she addressed them. "His wife just left him, so if the man wants to dye his hair, let him dye his hair. Leave him be." She fixed them with one last glare and, satisfied that they had been sufficiently chastised, turned back around and left the elevator.

Once she was in the safety of the NICU, a somewhat horrified look graced her features. What the hell was that? It wasn't like _she_ was alone anymore. Hell, she was getting _married_ in a month! Why, then, was she still so affected by Richard's plight?

As Addison checked on the preemies, her mind tried to scrounge up an answer to that question. Was it because she still harbored those feelings of abandonment and sheer loneliness from when Derek left her both times? She paused in the act of opening a chart. That couldn't have been it, could it?

Rationally speaking, it could. For God's sake, it hadn't even been a year yet. Of course, she was still hurt.

Then what the hell was she doing? Marrying another man the same year her first marriage crumbled was crazy. Not to mention a horrible way to remember a wedding anniversary. What were people thinking about her right then? Why on earth had she agreed to get married in a _month_?

Before she could panic any longer, her fiancé walked into the NICU and pecked her on the cheek. "Morning," he greeted. "Sorry I'm late. Triage training."

"Morning," she replied, trying her very best to keep the tremors from her voice. She didn't want to let Alex know just how freaked she felt at the moment. She forgot to respond to the other half of his greeting.

Which was pretty much the giant, flashing sign to Alex that something was off about the redhead. "What's up?"

As if his words flipped some kind of switch, Addison jolted back to work and scribbled in the chart she'd held open for the last five minutes, forcing her fear down to be dealt with at another time. "Nothing." She put down the chart. "But when you see the Chief today, don't say a word about his hair," she warned.

The caution earned her a bewildered look from her intern, but before he could comment on it, both their pages went off: 911 for the pit.

* * *

Addison, Alex and pretty much all available personnel in the hospital stood in the pit in shock as they stared at the television, stunned by the chaos shown on the news. A ferry boat had crashed in the bay, causing massive amounts of injuries and many passengers unaccounted for. Richard stood in front of the quiet crowd of doctors, briefing them on the situation and notifying them that two triage teams would be going to the scene. It wasn't until the Chief had dismissed everyone that Addison registered the fact that Alex was to be on one of those teams.

As she went with him to ready the kits he would need, Alex looked at her worriedly. She seemed a little...spacey, even if she was packing the kits efficiently and without error. "Hey, you okay?"

It took Addison a second to focus on Alex's face. "Yeah," she smiled. "Just a little freaked. I used to ride that ferry boat." _Back when I was still married to Derek less than a year ago_, she continued in her head. Guilt immediately rose up inside her for that thought. Shouldn't she have been talking to Alex about her fears instead of putting them aside until later? The masochist in Addison also pointed out how completely self-involved she was; hundreds of people were hurt and injured and waiting for their help, and all she could focus on was what people would think of her second marriage? She was _so_ going to Hell.

Alex nodded in understanding. "That would freak me out, too." He bent down and closed the kit he had been packing. "What are you going to do until the first wave of patients comes?"

Addison took a deep, steadying breath, reminding herself to stay on the topic at hand. "I'm going to make sure there are as many available beds as possible and try to clear the OR board so that there's room for emergent cases."

"Alright, well I've got to go," he said uncertainly. Her forehead had crinkled with worry, and he could tell it wasn't just over the ferry boat victims. What on earth was bothering her?

"Go," she smiled. "Save lives. Be a hero, yadda yadda. Just don't be stupid."

Alex chuckled. "Thanks for the advice." He leaned in and gave her a small kiss on the lips. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked when he pulled back.

How many times had he asked her that in the past hour? Obviously, she hadn't improved in her skill at hiding things from him. She bit her lip, contemplating whether or not this would be the best time to unload her fears on him, considering the fact that they were about to become very, very busy. But when people started calling for the teams to load into the ambulance, she panicked and blurted, "I want to postpone the wedding."

Alex's jaw dropped in surprise. Whatever he'd expected her to say, that had certainly not been it. He had no chance to respond, however, because Bailey ushered him into the ambulance to go to the dock. The last thing he saw before the doors closed was Addison standing at the entrance to the pit, apprehension written all over her face.

**A/N: See? I told you a lot was going to happen! I know some of you might hate me right now, but I have plans! I decided I wanted to include the ferry boat arc, one, to give you guys some sort of time reference, and two, to explore the Ava situation now that she isn't going to be trying to set the two of them up, you know, since they're already together. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I promise to try my hardest to get the next one out faster. You can even nag me on twitter if you feel I'm not updating fast enough. Now please do me a favor and review!**


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